Study 3: Ecodestruction and the Right to Food: The Cases of Water ...

Starving the Future Study 3
III. The right to water: A part of the right to food?
Water is a very particular substance. Its true nature is largely unknown and much needs to be
discovered. Be this as it may: Water is certainly both the source of life and its basic substance.
i. Is drinking water food?
Can freshwater be considered food? Most dictionaries would agree to this in the general sense of the
term food. A more specific use of the term food (which some see as secondary, whereas others claim it
to be exclusive) would reserve the term food for solid food or for food with caloric value. This, of course,
would exclude water from being considered food. There is a point in considering drinking water to be
food. In fact it may be hard to draw the line between “solid food” and “liquid food”, as most “solid food”
contains water (unless “dehydrated”). And most liquids are full of nutrients and caloric value – most
prominently the food par excellence in the first years of human life: Milk. Water moreover is needed for
cooking, and is often mixed with solid substances in the process of food preparation.
The situation nevertheless is sometimes confusing and the meaning of food switches back and forth
between the different more general or more specific uses of the term. Drinking water, for example would
not be seen to fall into the mandate of the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The
FAO therefore, sees food as an organic substance – primarily produced by agriculture. In the UN
system (and elsewhere) drinking water is rather seen as an issue for health: It is dealt with by the WHO,
the World Health Organisation. Drinking water is closely related to health (of course), but so is all other
food as well. Sometimes drinking water is also dealt with under the aspect of housing. But access to
food in general (or to markets, work and resources to procure it) is an aspect of housing as well:
Adequate housing would certainly require that such access to (other) food is available – and not only the
availability of drinking water, although water – for its many uses in the household besides drinking water
- needs to be even more readily available. There are therefore good reasons, not to consider drinking
water primarily under the housing or health aspects – but as food. This does not exclude its prominent
position in the fields of health and housing.
ii. Water for food production, irrigation
Drinking water is not only food in itself, but also necessary to produce food. It can be seen as the
primary input for food production in agriculture, as important as topsoil: Agriculture needs rains and/or
irrigation to yield crops. The prominence of water in food production and the consequences of ecodestruction
and sustainability will be dealt with in chapter IV below.
In rural areas it is hard to distinguish between water for drinking and for irrigation. In fact, many
scientists argue that irrigation water should have drinking water quality to secure that healthy food will
be produced.
On a global scale agricultural use of water accounts to two thirds of humanity’s water use. In Europe this
proportion is down to one third with some 54% being used up for industrial purposes and the rest for
domestic use. In Asia on the other hand agriculture consumes 84% of all water with the rest being split
somewhat equally between industrial and domestic use. Distribution figures for Africa are similar to Asia,
even though Africa uses a mere 150 cubic kilometres per year, compared to 1317 cubic kilometres used
in Asia. 16 Asia and Africa are the two continents which are home to the majority of humankind. This
indicates the enormous importance of water in Asia and Africa as food and food producing resource. At
the same time the demand of the urban centres (domestic and industrial use) is increasing.
FIAN International 114
June 2002