Oldspeak:”We commit to approaches that improve sustainability of water use in food and agricultural production while ensuring food security and nutrition in accordance with our multilateral trade commitments…We will protect water and water-related ecosystems by encouraging water-friendly, sustainable agricultural practices and technologies that enhance the water quality and resilience of water bodies…We are therefore committed to developing and implementing corresponding strategies at the national level.” -G20 Statement, 1/22/2017

“This my friends is a prime example of Orwellian doublespeak. Sustainable water use is impossible in a system of unsustainable and ecologically incompatible agricultural production. Food security for all, particularly the worlds poorest, cannot be ensured while “multilateral trade commitments” that create conditions for inequitable and “market-based” distribution of resources are honored. Water cannot be protected while ecosystem killing dams are built. Water cannot be protected while pollution from towns and cities, industry and agriculture directly affect water supplies for people and freshwater ecosystems. Water cannot be protected while oil pipelines crisscross and fracked gas wells are drilled into and around the Earth’s watersheds, poisoning them irreparably. Water cannot be conserved with this many humans on the planet, throwing the ecology further out of balance with each fresh-faced baby born. Water bodies cannot be made more resilient as we use our oceans & rivers for waste dumping grounds. But yes, let our grand exalted & eminent agriculture ministers expend more carbon and resources to continue pontificating disingenuously about protecting water. Such bullshit. Enjoy the Kabuki Theater! ” -OSJ

Written By Michael Hogan @ Reuters:

Greater global efforts should be taken to safeguard precious world water supplies to secure food production, the agriculture ministers of the group of 20 leading economies (G20) said on Sunday.

“We commit to approaches that improve sustainability of water use in food and agricultural production while ensuring food security and nutrition in accordance with our multilateral trade commitments,” they said in a statement after meeting in Berlin.

Climate change, the growing world population and demands for industrialization have put a strain on global water supplies, with the impact felt on rich and poor nations.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation warned in December that 12 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia need food aid as farmers struggle with the impact of repeated droughts, compelling Ethiopia to make major wheat imports.

Saudi Arabia has been ending its crop farming to save precious water and has been importing food instead.

“We will protect water and water-related ecosystems by encouraging water-friendly, sustainable agricultural practices and technologies that enhance the water quality and resilience of water bodies,” the G20 statement on Sunday said.

“We are therefore committed to developing and implementing corresponding strategies at the national level,” it added.

Global farming needs sustainable water supplies to feed the growing world population and provide the basis for world peace and stability, the meeting’s host, German agriculture minister Christian Schmidt, said.

“Agriculture is a part of global security politics,” he said.

The G20 ministers also committed themselves to reducing animal diseases but to prevent the unnecessary use of antibiotic drugs in farming.

Germany took over the presidency of the G20 group of leading economies in late 2016, a platform Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to use to safeguard multilateral cooperation.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)