The difference is that “food” isn’t something that falls out of the sky or simply exists in its final form in nature. It is farmed, processed, and packaged for market.
Water, by itself, is natural and in its final form (sans boiling away impurities). It also falls from the sky. The problem comes up that companies like Nestle have “water rights” that some argue they shouldn’t have that prohibit use of publicly available water for anybody but Nestle.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with a company profiting off of the packaging, marketing, and distribution of bottled water. The problem I have is that companies should not be allowed to take as much water as they want, especially if it hurts public interest. I also have issue with states restricting a persons ability to capture and use rain water.
Kind of hypocritical that I cannot capture rain water and sell it, but Nestle can siphon of millions of gallons of water from a public water source and everyone is expected to be okay with it.
Not as part of a normal life. Or at least, I don’t see many people carrying baskets of freshly picked apples around.
Your point is true, though, even if a bit impractical for most.
When we culturally embrace that food is a market item, not a right, then we systemically avoid maintaining or enabling sources of food that violate market principles: say, for example, keeping fruit trees in public parks, and making excess farm production available to the public
Rainwater capture isn’t about you and I and some 50-gallon drums, your article even talks about reasonable use. The idea is to stop assholes from changing/diverting waterways.
There was an ass somewhere out West that was prosecuted, acting like he was a simple man getting the government shaft. He was collecting so much he dried up a creek that downstream farmers depended on.
Funny enough, I looked up Florida and apparently we not only encourage rainwater collection, some municipalities offer incentives! Weird. Now if it would only rain…
