Water footprint accounting of organic and non-organic strawberries including ancillary materials: a case study

Fresh water scarcity has become a main issue debated at international level. In order to support a better management and use of water, the methodology of Water Footprint has been developed. In this paper the Water Footprint of a 330g Strawberry Jam produced within Europe and sold in Italy is presented. The objectives of the research were: 1) to compare the Water Footprint accounting of two different strawberries farming (organic and non-organic); 2) to determine whether the contribution of the ancillary materials and processes to the overall product water footprint was significant. The water footprint accounting of organic farming resulted to be bigger than the non-organic one. Moreover ancillary materials and processes resulted responsible for over the 10% of the overall product water footprint. Therefore, to support the choices and decisions in the field of water resources management, it is important to consider also ancillary materials and processes.