Last month, an article in the journal Scientific American looked at the top freshwater consuming nations. The FAO Washington Blog has reported many times on the importance of water in agriculture. So it is not surprising that this study found most water is used not for direct consumption, but to grow food, raise livestock and produce other agricultural products. Largest users of this “virtual water” are China, India and the United States, although Japan imports the most, according to a study by engineers Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Mesfin M. Mekonnen of the University of Twente in The Netherlands published earlier in the year.
