Livestock and meat exports to the United States mean Canada is exporting billions of litres of water south each year, argues an environmental analysis prepared at the University of Waterloo.
In an environmental studies master’s thesis, Nabeela Rahman argued that the “virtual water” exports are a hidden environmental cost of the North American Free Trade Agreement that led to sharply increased livestock exports.
“The benefits of this trade liberalization have hidden environmental costs that seldom get noticed or accounted,” she wrote.
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“The research results indicate that there is a large difference in the amount of virtual water being transferred though livestock and livestock commodities from Canada to the U.S. The average difference in trade has been calculated to be 3.6 billion cubic metres (of water equivalent) per year.”
The concept of a virtual water trade has been part of the environmental literature and debate for years.
In agricultural terms, the reasoning is that every time Canada produces animals or crops for export, it effectively exports the water used to produce those commodities.
In the case of the explosion in livestock exports during the past two decades under free trade agreements, a significant slice of the herd has come from water-challenged southern Alberta.
Rahman noted that a fierce political debate has revolved around whether bulk water is a commodity subject to NAFTA rules, while the fact that finite water resources are consumed to produce traded commodities is rarely recognized.
“The hidden environmental costs for the exporting countries or benefits to the importing countries are not reflected in the pricing of agricultural commodities,” she wrote.
“NAFTA’s mandate for the expansion of trade and investment through the removal of all trade barriers between the two countries is encouraging increased virtual water trade. This trade, if overlooked, can have deleterious impacts on the water resources of Canada.”
The anti-free trade Council of Canadians is using the research to bolster arguments against trade deals, including free trade negotiations ongoing between Canada and the European Union.
It has asked Rahman to prepare similar water use calculations for grain and oilseed exports.
In an interview late last year, council president Maude Barlow argued that the local food movement is part of the answer.
“An incredible amount of water is exported from Western Canada as virtual water, as water used to produce commodities that we ship around the world,” she said.
“If we are concerned about water supply, and we should be, then we have to deglobalize. The idea of using our limited water resources to send commodities around the world, often to places where they do not have enough water, has to stop.”
In her thesis, Rahman said the fact that the U.S. can import high water-use commodities such as livestock and meat from Canada may lessen the pressure for bulk water imports into parched western areas.
“The U.S. may not require large diversions or engineered systems to access Canadian fresh water,” she wrote.
“However, they are subsidizing their agricultural water needs by importing water-intensive commodities from Canada.”
