Business H2O Summit: Water Management Best Practices from the U.S. and Israel
Earlier this month, as a part of Haifa's sponsorship of the summit, Marc Lebl, CEO of Haifa North America, and me – Tal Shani, Water Soluble Marketing Manager, participated the Business H2O Summit that was organized by the USA Chamber of Commerce. The important event focused on alternative solutions of better water management and usage.
The US chamber of commerce supports millions of local businesses. In collaboration with the Israeli Ben Gurion University (BGU) and the Zuckerberg foundation for water technologies research, they created this event, bringing together business leaders, government officials, and water experts to discuss the growing demand for water.
Over the past years, water shortage has grown notably, and even severe. This is the outcome of growing population and larger demand for food and water, along with decrease of precipitations. A sequence of drought years in California, Nevada and other states created an urgent need for solutions.
It is estimated that 70%~ of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture, while industry and human consumption account for the remainder. With these figures, farmers and companies in the agriculture business must be involved in any action or change of water policy.
As Haifa's representative, I participated in a panel titled "Sustainable Agriculture: Reducing agriculture’s water footprint". The main issue I addressed was advanced agricultural practices that support efficient water management. Efficient fertilizer applications and the introduction micro irrigation bring upon an opportunity to significantly improve water and nutrients use efficiency (WUE, NUE). Haifa’s fertilizers support resourceful applications:
Haifa's fertilizers are aimed for the high-end agricultural solutions. They are highly pure, and free of harmful elements for soil and ground water.
Other interesting lectures and panels discussed various perspectives of the water situation, and considered solutions to achieve sustainability and to improve water use. Researchers, politicians, the governors of Nevada and Arizona, and representative of water related organizations and commercial companies participated in the discussions with full dedication to finding solutions for this growing issue.
Personally, I was impressed with the commitment of MGM and PepsiCO, two leading commercial companies that have undertaken the sustainability challenges, making them a factor in their considerations and strategy.
