Foodprint to Footprint

Water And Food






Water Consumption


Water consumption


Food Consumption


Water for food1



Water for food2

Water needed to produce Food


1 litre of beer

300 litres of water

1 ltrs wine

872 litres of water

1 cup of coffee

140 litres of water

1 litre of milk

800 litres of water


1 kilo of rice

3600 litres of water

1 kilo of wheat

1375 litres

1 kilo toor dal

1400 litres of water

Non Vegetarian

1 kilo of chicken

4325 litres

1 kilo Mutton

5520 litres

1 kilo Beef meat

13000 litres

Veg vs Non Veg





Consumerism to Conservation


Ecological footprint




Taxing Time – The Way forward?





Non Vegetarian Food




Eat Right & Be Merry




merry go round carousel carnival ride



The Merry Goes Round


This shift has occurred between the medieval period to present times.



June – What shall we celebrate this month?

June is a month when there are no major festivals in India.

Why is it so?

June is the month when we have the onset of monsoon all over India. It generally sets in around the 1st of June in Kerala and by the end of June, slowly, steadily and gradually spreads all over India.

India with cloud

 We all know that, from time immemorial, India has been an agrarian society and what is important for such an agrarian society relying on agriculture, to survive, to prosper?


Water for agriculture in India is mainly provided by the monsoon rains. If there are major festivals in this month when the monsoon starts, then the attention of the people will be diverted towards the festival, instead of harnessing the water when it rains and diverting the water towards their fields.

Dam 2 copy

If there are no festivals, then all their attention will be towards, sowing the seeds, transplanting them when they are big enough to be transplanted, spaced about correctly for them to grow as healthy plants and removing the weeds as the crops grow so that the young plants get all the nourishment and water for them to grow.

Sowing of rice

This work is a time bound activity and has to be completed within a short time window so that the crops get the required amounts of water at the right stage of their growth and the monsoon is leveraged properly.

This activity therefore requires the whole family, male and female, elders and youngsters, to be involved whole heartedly. All hands at the field!

Given this fact of nature, its timing and the need of the society, an agricultural economy, isn’t it wonderful that this phase of the year in India, has been kept devoid of festivals, so that people can focus on work – agriculture.

To make this work a joy and fun, the farmers in India used to celebrate work in the form of the sowing festival. Songs were sung as they sowed and planted the seedlings. The fields would come alive with a riot of colours and music as the women descended into the fields, against the backdrop of a cloudy sky. This festival is celebrated in a very few parts of India today but continues to be celebrated with fervour in many other parts of Asia even today.

This month in the Indian calendar, is known as Jyeshta in Hindi and Aani in the Tamil calendar.

From all this, it is obvious that the festivals of India are designed in such a way, keeping in mind the agrarian society and its needs. The festivals were not randomly celebrated but were in sync with nature and the society.

Given this understanding, there is one very important astronomic event happening every year, year after year, in the month of June. This event among other events is a time marker and affects us in our daily life. What is this event?

As we know, the earth is tilted on its axis by 23.4 degrees. Because of this tilt and the revolution of the earth around the sun, we perceive the sun to be moving northwards and southwards between the 2 lattitudes, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, successively, in its annual six monthly journey each way.

On June 21st of every year, our sun reaches the northern end of its journey at the Tropic of Cancer and transits into its journey southwards towards the tropic of Capricorn. The northern journey of the sun is known Uttarayan, Uttar meaning north and the Southern Journey is called Dakshinayan, Dakshin meaning southward.

21st June is the day the sun reaches the northern most point of its journey and is “still’ on that day at the Tropic of Cancer. It is called the Summer Solstice.

summer solstice

For the people living in the northern hemisphere this consequently happens to be the longest day of the year. It is the mid summer day. A month before and after this day is peak summer in the northern hemisphere. This season in Indian languages is known as Greeshma Rthu, Greeshma meaning warm or hot. That is why we have the Hindi word ‘garam’ for hot.

Rthu means season. The flow of seasons happens repeatedly without fail every year, year after year, come what may, June after May, come rain or shine. That is why it is called rthu.

The root word for Rthu is Rtha, from which also comes the English word rhythm.

Seasons are a rhythmic flow that happen regularly every year without fail. This understanding of how the earth revolves around the sun in a rhythmic manner giving rise to the rhythmic movements of the sun across the sky, creating seasons for us, led to the design of the calendar and the festivals of India embedded, woven in sync with our culture, society and civilization, in this ancient and continuously lived in land. Festivals, of India are in rhythm and in sync with Nature.

Everything in our body, our lives, our festivals, our activities are in rhythm with ourselves, our livelihood, our societies, our earth, our sun and the cosmos.

This month of June, when there are no major festivals, reminds us of this rhythm and gives us an opportunity to celebrate this understanding of every society having to be in tune with nature’s rhythm.

So, in June, let us celebrate all that the monsoons augur.

Summer – Virtually No Water

World Water Day

In the Northern hemisphere, months of April, May, June mean summer. At the peak of summer, most lands look parched and dry. People await the rains for relief from sweltering heat.

Availability of water in summer becomes a problem in different parts of the globe. Perhaps, as a warning of this oncoming problem, the world observes World Water Day on March 22nd every year.

The Stark Reality, Water – a Finite Resource

Water is a renewable resource. At the same time, it is not an infinite but a finite resource.

The amount of water available globally, while it seems large, is in fact very limited, for nearly 98 % of the water on earth is in the form of water in the seas and oceans, as salt water. This water is not useful for industry, agriculture or for animals and humans.

Trying to harness this brackish sea water through the modern reverse osmosis process is not only capital intensive and costly but the annual operations and maintenance costs are prohibitive too. That puts almost 98% of water on earth, out of our reach.

Given this scenario we have to depend on the balance little over 2% water for our water resources.

A substantial portion of this 2% fresh water is locked up as ice in the 2 poles, the ice caps on snow covered mountains and the heavy glaciers in them.  They form about 1.725 % of the total water on earth.

So, what is left as flowing fresh water, is hardly 0.025 % of all the water in the world.


 Flowing fresh water is thus not infinite, but finite and very miniscule.

Human population on the other hand has been growing steadily, adding about one billion to its population every few decades.


This means that the same quantity of water has to be shared by a billion more people every 10 years, which means that there is going to be less and less water for each individual, for their needs of life, as the years roll by.

Farming, a Water Guzzler?

The major needs of water for life are not for drinking, bathing and washing, but the major consumption of water is for growing the food we eat.

Hence many tend to classify farming as a water guzzler. Many city dwellers are also under the impression that animal products may be a viable alternative to growing food during water shortage.

Is that really so?

The Reality

1 Kilo of grain, be it rice, wheat, pulses, cereal, needs about 1500 liters of water. That is indeed a high volume of water needed to grow grains.

In comparison, to create 1 kilo of meat, approximately 15000 liters of water are calculated to be required. So, growing live stock for meat is actually 10 times more water intensive than growing grains for food.

This is a bigger water guzzling reality.

 water for veg and non veg


 Vegetarianism – A Need, Not Choice Any More

If earth has to be sustainable and water resources have to be judiciously handled for the burgeoning population, then it becomes not a choice, but a necessity, that we move away from being a meat eating population to vegetarianism, so that 9/10th of the fresh water currenly lost on growing live stocks just for human consumption, is made available once again for human needs.

Is It Only Food Wastage?

What is even more worrying to observe, is the atrocious wastage of the food that has been produced using this limited, precious water.

It is estimated that about 30% of all the food that is produced is wasted.

Just imagine the amount of manual effort, land use and other resources that had gone into the production of this food for consumption. Think of the amount of the precious water that has gone into producing these foods, which literally goes down the drain when the food is wasted.

Virtual Water

The water that goes into the production of food is now called by the term “virtual water” of the product.

In today’s world economy, there is free trade of food from one region to another.  With newer technologies to keep food produce fresh during transport and genetic modifications to give them a longer shelf life and world appeal, we have now transcended the bounds of seasons, climates, geography and topology.

Non seasonal and non local foods have therefore found their way into local reach thus encouraging some regions of the world to produce in excess of their local consumption needs, so that it can be exported for more gains, to other regions of the world where this product is in demand.

Along with the produce, since there is also a virtual transfer of the water that has gone into the making of the produce, there is also a “virtual water trade” happening along with every trade of produce.

Trade Compensation

Producers get paid for their produce.

Exporters get paid for their handling.

The nation receives foreign exchange.

But what about the “virtual water” that has gone into the growing of the produce and has been traded with?

Has the land been compensated enough for the depletion of this virtual water?

Will the monies received, be able to reproduce water in excess of the finite limit of fresh water that falls on a land?

Who is to compensate for this loss in Nature? Does it really matter to us?

This question gains further significance in the context of the current, lopsided, world economy and trade.

A Manmade Global Imbalance

A careful look at trends around the world will show that most of the water intensive produce of the world is produced in and exported from the developing and underdeveloped countries of the world. Typically the countries in the tropical belt which receive more rain and shine.

These countries send out their finite amount of fresh water as “virtual water” in their product exports on one hand and complain of shortage of water on the other hand to meet the direct needs of water. They finally end up borrowing from the developed nations to find solutions for their water shortage problems, little realizing how it is being created in the first place.

As a global community, we need to become aware of this virtual truth, of an imbalance being created by mankind in the last few centuries.

A Natural Balance

Our ancients seem not to have encountered such an issue. Could be because of their prudent way of living, guided by the rhythm of seasons, climates and topology.

Humans and animals consumed locally produced seasonal products – those that were adapted to be produced in their local topology, those that could be produced in that season, for their climatic conditions.

This not only kept them fit and healthy for their local conditions but also did not put undue stress on their finite amount of local water, inorder to produce locally for the entire world.

Reflecting on Virtual Water


The overall amount of water on this earth has not changed. This earth has in the last many millennia sustained its population of people, animal life and plant life with these finite water resources. We the humans have made this free natural resource into a trading commodity in the last few decades.

How long will this help sustain the modern, commercial times that we live in?

Divine Nature has ordained us to enjoy free life, fresh water and pure air.

Are we in our pursuit of satiating our taste buds with alien foods and in our greed for monetary wealth, creating imbalances in our minds, body and Nature?

World over, mankind has to pause and think,

“Do we all really need global food at our local kitchens, at the price we are all really having to pay for it?”

A Wholistic Perspective On Water Harnessing

Tamil Nadu, save for a few regions, does not receive much rain from the SouthWest monsoon which is the main monsoon of India. Tamil Nadu receives its rains mainly from the North East monsoon which is less copious.

 During the whole season, it rains for only 15 to 20 days in a year, which means about only 100 hours of rain and this has to be used for the remaining 8660 hours of the year. This scenario has led to the popular belief that Tamil Nadu is rainfall deficient and hence water deficient.

 But this has been the rainfall scene for thousands of years.

 While the modern generation looks at this land as being rainfall and water deficient, even till as recently as 150 years ago, the people of Tamil Nadu seem to have enjoyed great prosperity and culture, which can come only when there is sufficient water in this land for its people, flora and fauna.

 The people of Tamil Nadu had realized that this land is on the leeward side of the Western Ghat. The gradient of the land was sloping from west to east, draining into the Bay of Bengal.

 Recognizing this topography, they built Eri, tanks, dotting all over the landscape to harness the rains where its falls and pass it on to places where it did not rain. It was an ingenious, intricate web, a chain of tanks – system tanks, Eri, Oorani, Anaikat and a whole host of local water harnessing systems, which were interconnected. The rivers and their distributaries were the arteries. The principle behind it was the heart of sharing.

 If it rained anywhere in the Carnatic region, all the tanks downstream would also receive water. Finally, if the water was let out from the Sri Vaikuntam Eri in southernend of Tamil Nadu, near Tirunelvelli, to the sea, it meant that all the Eri of the Carnatic land were brim full by then.

 These Eri and the web, were all built by the locals themselves during the Pallava period, from 400 CE to 1100 CE. These have since then sustained the land and made it prosperous for the next thousand years and more. These were all people designed and people maintained.

 It was after the 1857 war of Independence that the British administrators decided to wrest control of the water bodies from the local people.

 To this effect, a Public Works Act of 1857 was promulgated and the Public Works Department (PWD) was created to control the water bodies of the land. This passed the control of the water bodies from the people to the government which soon led to the dereliction in their maintenance and eventual disrepair.  Soon the people of Tamil Nadu were deprived of their life supporting Eri and therein, rests the tale of the water shortage of Tamil Nadu.

 A perspective of this is discussed in our article on solution to the Cauvery Water Issue.

 The Tamil Nadu State Legislative Assembly passed the Farmers Management of Irrigation Systems Act 2001 which is a step in the right direction of giving back the control of the water bodies back to the farmers.

 Today, there is a renewed energy in the youth to revive the tanks in disrepair in their local areas. While this is a good step in restoring ground water in that region, this stand alone tank will be of no avail when that region does not receive its due rains in any year.

 The complete solution lies in reviving the connecting ducts between these tanks as well as reviving the entire web, the Chain Tank system, so that irrespective of wherever it rains in the Carnatic region, the Eri of every village of this region is always full. Not a trivial task. It is a challenge indeed, in terms of plan, effort and cost.

 A possible way out for the overall revival is discussed in detail in our book You Turn India in the Bharath Gyan series.

Future of Cauvery water sharing lies in our past













