Considerations on Virtual Water and Agri-food Trade

Virtual water (VW) content refers to the volume of water used to produce a good or service that is susceptible to be traded internationally. A significant feature that characterizes external trade of the country is the fact that virtual water imports exceed exports (Arreguin 2007), which has resulted in a purely accidental circumstance, but whose discovery allows to consider that it is possible to formulate public policy incentives to guide the best use of water resources through better allocation of water and more accurate selection of productive practices. With the inclusion of agriculture in NAFTA, food production and consumption in Mexico were closely linked to the largest food producer worldwide; on the one hand, imports of cereals and oilseeds were favored, but on the other hand, the production and export of vegetables and some fruits changed water use and stress. VW volume imports increased by 78 %.