Virtual water theory and its application in food security

Virtual water means all water resource consumed in the process of commodity production and service. From virtual water strategy, the country or region, who is in lack of water, could obtain the necessary water resource by means of trade in order to stabilize the economic sustainable development for this region. This thesis gave emphasis to introduce the calculation method of virtual water for farm crops and stock raising. Through actual examples appearing in farm production of four provinces in central part of China, this thesis pointed out that virtual water strategy could be regarded as a back-up proposal to solve water resource shortage, and virtual water could be collocated globally by virtual water trade. As a kind of regulating method, the virtual water strategy could increase the water supply for the region in lack of water so as to maintain the regional or national security in the view of water resource and food security. Hereby, virtual water possesses the important theoretic and practical significance for optimum arrangement of water resource and food security production.