In 1998 I was attending a training course in Israel and happened to visit Jaffa, the port area whose name we associate with oranges. When I say ‘we’, I am referring to those of us who savoured the sweetness of Jaffa oranges in the 1960s and 1970s. Jaffa was synonymous with oranges. 

We spoke to our guide about this matter and he consulted with the locals who came back with a very surprising answer – “we do not export them any more because our country would, thus, be exporting its precious and scarce water supply! Instead, nowadays, we export seeds”.

Unbelievable but also true to some extent. The point I want to make here is that we have recently heard on the news of entrepreneurs in Malta who are planning to export bottled water to foreign countries. The way it was presented made it sound like a super great idea. 

I think not. Actually, I think it is a bad idea. A very bad one indeed. Worse still if this water is coming from our water table. The same argument can also be made for the export of bottled beverages. 

On a barren rock like ours, where water is so rare, we need to save every single drop, not have it exported.