Water users

In many member states, runoff from agriculture is responsible for more than half of the nitrate and phosphorus concentrations in surface water. In the UK, 60% of the nitrites that have to be removed from drinking water derive from agriculture – as well as 90% of the zoonotic pathogens (the microbes brought into groundwater through manure). And, of course, agriculture is responsible for almost all the use of pesticides and veterinary drugs that find their way into our water.

Polluting water is easy; cleaning it up can be excessively difficult. Water utilities are forced to invest in expensive water treatment, and pass these costs onto consumers. Higher water prices are only part of the damage inflicted on consumers. When water utilities treat water intensively, it just does not taste the same. But things can get worse than a chemical smell: some pollution remains below critical thresholds and is not removed from drinking water.

Another problem is water abstraction. Within the EU-15, the share of agriculture in total water use is 30%. When water becomes scarce, this harms ecosystems and competing water users: citizens who want to take a shower, companies that want to cool their factories, transportation services that use water ways and the tourism industry that wants to sell a fresh lake.

Nevertheless, many governments encourage excessive water use by agriculture. They charge farmers little or nothing for the water they abstract. Worse, they even subsidize irrigation and offer energy tax reductions, so that farmers can extract more water from groundwater sources.

Farmers certainly need water for their production, and some water pollution from agriculture is inevitable. However, farmers should pay an adequate price for this, so that they use water responsibly. Instead of supporting unsustainable water use and pollution, the future CAP might spend more to compensate farmers who undertake special efforts to keep water clean and avoid waste.