Unfortunately, we have reached the end of the blog posts! When starting this blog, I was drawn to understand the complex water and food scarcity issue. My mother, who spent the first nineteen years of her life in Sylhet would tell me stories about the long distances she would travel to bring water back to the home just so the family could cook and wash their dishes. Circumstances in the villages are now changing, with more access to efficient technology so people have a more reliable access to water. Of course, Bangladesh is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change which has led to difficulties. I was keen to understand more of what was being done in different countries regarding the consequences of population growth and climate change on food security, particularly for a continent that I knew relatively little about. Through these blog posts, I was able to engage with a large variety of sources that have taught me more about the complexities and individualiti
Previous blog posts have focused on more tangible methods to tackle the water and food scarcity issue, such as desalination, drip irrigation and extracting groundwater. But what if we did not have to employ these more tangible methods, and still work towards achieving food security? Virtual water is a term coined by Allan (1997) ; it is used to address the water that is used in the production of any commodity. When this commodity is traded, water is also traded as water is embedded in the commodity (Zeitoun et al, 2010) . This applies to agricultural commodities, as the water used in the production of food staples is significant. For instance, 1,000 cubic metres of water is required to produce a ton of grain (Allan, 2003). Therefore, if it is food that is traded, virtual water can globalise the problem of water scarcity and allow countries that are facing this issue to import water intensive crops. The bluewater used for irrigated agriculture is a net drain on water resources and can