Introduction -- Not all water drops are equal -- Water and food security: food-water and food supply value chains -- The Water Footprint: linking human consumption and water use -- The impact of food on our lives -- Water sustainability and 0 km: Slow Food -- Virtual water: the water we eat, buy and waste -- Water labelling -- Virtual water: an anthropological perspective -- Moral economy and virtual water: Italian activism for water as a public good -- Food globalization and water geography: where does Italy stand? -- Virtual water ‘trade’ in the Mediterranean area -- Overcoming water scarcity through economics: irrigation and drought -- From the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition’s Double pyramid to virtual water in the pasta trade -- The water footprint of wine -- Water footprint and environmental sustainability of typical Italian food products -- Water footprint of tomatoes.

This book pursues a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach in order to analyze the relationship between water and food security. It demonstrates that most of the world’s economies lack sufficient water resources to secure their populations’ food requirements and are thus virtual importers of water. One of the most inspiring cases, which this book is rooted in, is Italy: the third largest net virtual water importer on earth. The book also shows that the sustainability of water depends on the extent to which societies recognize and take into account its value and contribution to agricultural production. Due to the large volumes of water required for food production, water and food security are in fact inextricably linked. Contributions from leading international experts and scholars in the field use the concepts of virtual water and water footprints to explain this relationship, with an eye to the empirical examples of wine, tomato and pasta production in Italy. This book provides a valuable resource for all researchers, professionals, policymakers and everyone else interested in water and food security.