Today is World Water Day, an observance that the United Nations has been recognizing since 1993.
What does water have to do with regenerative medicine? Stick with me. (And no, I’m not going to talk about hydrogels.)
World Water Day was established to raise awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. The United Nations is striving to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. Read about its sustainable development goal.
This year’s theme is “water for peace” and focuses on the critical role water plays around the world to maintain safety, security and prosperity. As we know, water is a resource that we depend on to live. It is essential to avoid illness – without it, millions of people will continue to die every year from water-related diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea (source: UN sustainable development goal). The Government of Canada says, “Up to 80% of illnesses in the developing world are linked to inadequate water and sanitation.”
Further, we require water for food, “human health, a healthy environment, poverty reduction, gender equality, a sustainable economy, and peace and security.”
Peace and security
In a water-rich nation like Canada, where clean water is abundant (unless you live in places like Nunavut), we take water for granted. I wasn’t fully aware of the geopolitical issues around water until I watched The Grab.
Written, directed and produced by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, The Grab is an intense documentary that unravels like a thriller and suggests that “the next world war won’t be fought over ideology, oil or border disputes, but basic resources like meat, wheat and water (Variety)” with water being the common denominator. Without it, we don’t have meat or wheat to feed the world.
The documentary follows an award-winning journalist – Nathan Halverson and his team at the Center for Investigative Reporting. They have been reporting on the land grab by foreign governments and corporations for years and have the documents to back up every word in the film. After the screening that I watched, the director made the point that she was very careful to source every piece of data in the documentary so there could be no accusations of falsifying information or fake news. A chilling necessity in modern society.
According to the documentary, countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Russia are buying land outside their borders because of shortages they are experiencing and/or anticipating. “A Chinese company now owns 1 in 4 pigs raised in the U.S.,” Nathan Halverson writes for Reveal.
I watched the documentary one year ago, but I recall a scene where British Intelligence and military personnel convened a war room to prepare for “World War III,” which they expected would be fought over water.
Thom Powers writes the following in his TIFF review of The Grab:
“Want to understand the reason Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine? Look no further than the besieged country’s status as supplier of 29% of the global wheat trade. Russia already took a big bite of the country in 2014, to which Ukraine responded by cutting off water to Crimea. It’s no coincidence that Russian forces occupied the canal on day one of their latest offensive, destroying the dam blocking water from the Dnieper River. (Not upset enough about Putin? Just wait’ll you hear why global warming is a good thing to a country that sees usable ranch land under areas of ice.)”
How regenerative medicine can save the day
As I watched the documentary, I was reminded of the push to produce meat from cells. This is a topic that has been covered before for Signals.
Cultivated meat, or lab-grown meat, or cell-based meat or clean meat (that last one seems extremely biased) has the potential for an alternative option that could offer important benefits around the world. Beginning with the environmental footprint, Elisa D’Arcangelo writes that “Livestock is a major cause of greenhouse gases, a chief consumer and polluter of water at every step in the meat-production chain, and responsible for the destruction of biodiversity through the occupation of land.” Read her post to understand how cell-based meat is produced.
Since this post started by talking about water, how much water is used to raise livestock? Food Tank – a food think tank – states that “the global average water footprint – or the total amount of water needed – to produce one pound of beef is 1,800 gallons of water; one pound of pork takes 718 gallons of water. As a comparison, the water footprint of soybeans is 206 gallons; corn is 108 gallons.” (Click on the hyperlink to see the source for the numbers and a water calculator to determine your personal water footprint.)
On the other hand, “Cultured meat requires 99 percent less land, 90 percent less water, and 45 percent less energy, which would help accommodate population growth while lowering food-based ecological impacts, including climate change. It can also be placed in areas inhospitable to traditional livestock production, and it would reduce animal cruelty. (UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy)”
When I wrote about this topic in 2022, I included some findings published by the World Economic Forum. I think the information is still valid and include it again: “By 2050, global food systems will need to meet the dietary demands of more than 10 billion people […]. This food will have to be produced sustainably in ways that contribute to reducing climate change, and that address other environmental challenges. At the same time, human health is influenced more by food than by any other single factor, and facilitating healthy diets is critical both for individual well‑being and containing the costs of treating illnesses. It is widely recognized that the current trajectory of the food system will not allow us to meet these goals.” (Emphasis mine.) You can read the full post here.
Although I’m pointing out the environmental benefits of cell-based meat, there are others to consider, such as: less chance of contamination from E. coli bacteria; less chance of antibiotic resistance; and, of utmost importance to many consumers, it’s not harmful to animals. Cell-based meat still has a ways to go before it is economically feasible and scalable, and it has a huge public relations hurdle to overcome that is now being hurt by efforts to discredit the science. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given approval for two California-based companies – Upside Foods and Good Meat – to sell their cell-based meat products in restaurants.
This Global News report from June 2023 sums up the situation nicely.
Stacey Johnson
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