Introduction: The complex relationship between water and food
I’ve decided the best way to structure this first post is to discuss the reasons behind choosing my thematic area before providing some useful context. It presents an opportunity to build on my understanding of the complex relationship between water and food from my study of Human Ecology where the evolution of competing discourses within this space stood out to me. Naturally, this provides scope for nuanced critique to illustrate my own perspective through this blog. I now outline some of these competing arguments. Traditionally, the literature widely accepted that acute food shortages were brought about by food-availability decline (FAD) meaning a fall in aggregate food production ( Basu, 2010 ). This could result from fluctuations in physical variables, perhaps rainfall, or extreme geopolitical events. Regardless, this reduces the relationship between water and food to a linear one – water scarcity leads to a fall in aggregate food production which threatens food shortage. This logi...