Shocking news - Food Waste and Lost - Day 525

Did you know!!! Roughly ONE THIRD of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted

What's the difference between food loss and food waste?

• Waste occurs toward the back end of the food chain, at the retail and consumer level. In general, the richer the nation, the higher its per capita rate of waste.
• Loss, on the other hand, mostly occurs at the front of the food chain—during production, postharvest, and processing—and it's far less prevalent in industrialized nations than in the developing world, which tends to lack the infrastructure to deliver all of its food, in decent shape, to consumers eager to eat it

What are the reasons for food waste and food lost?

• Food lost:
• Ineffective infrastructure to handle the chain of production of food (for example: absence of refrigeration, inability to convert food to shelf-stable foods, Bad road and rail conditions slow down the time the food freshly reach the market, lack of storage space)
• Lack of good water
• Absence of existing technology to support with the food production.

• Food Waste:
• Consumerist behaviour - Food being wasted in restaurants and house holds
• Economic / consumerism - maintaining pricing and profit for example farmers will also leave entire blocks of fruit or vegetables in orchards and fields for fear of flooding the market and depressing prices. Markets will throw away good food that was labelled as 'used by' to maintain the quality/image of the brand name.

What are the consequences of food waste?

• Humanitarian - lost opportunity to feed people that are starving
• Abuse of resources - waste of vast quantities of fuel, agricultural chemicals, water, land, and labor needed to produce food - resources that could have utilized for supportive activities.
• Environment - food waste leads to wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides; more fuel used for transportation; and more rotting food, creating more methane – one of the most harmful greenhouse gases that contributes to climate change.

Solutions:

The national geographic article provide sustainable solutions that are already in the public awareness.

LIG provides encompassing/holistic solutions within the understanding that food waste cannot be changed or solved without entirely solving the rest of the global problems which are all interconnected with human nature, education, money, politics and so forth.

Though, what we all must realize is that unless we stand together as one unified voice, we won't be able to create a world that is of worth for everyone equally. We need to come together and holistically develop the necessary solutions that includes education, economics, politics and so forth. Within that also, to remember that our voice is heard through our living example. So within the context of food waste, you are able to make small changes in your relationship to food consumption for example.

Please investigate more LIG proposal and become the living voice in creating a better world for everyone.

More resources:

Encompassing article about food waste/lost and solutions -

One-Third of Food Is Lost or Wasted: What Can Be Done

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141013-food-waste-national-security-environment-science-ngfood/

Food Waste Facts

http://www.unep.org/wed/2013/quickfacts/

Just Eat It: Why Do We Waste Food?

http://www.marlenvargasdelrazo.com/just-eat-it-why-do-we-waste-food/

Food Waste: The Epitome of Human Ignorance

http://activistsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2015/10/day-877-food-waste-epitome-of-human.html

USDA and EPA Join with Private Sector, Charitable Organizations to Set Nation's First Food Waste Reduction Goals

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2015/09/0257.xml&navid=NEWS_RELEASE&navtype=RT&parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&edeployment_action=retrievecontent

U.S. Food Waste Challenge - FAQ's

http://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm

Food Waste: The Facts - By United Nations Environment Programme, Regional Office of North America

http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts

Survey Highlights Consumer Misunderstanding of Food Waste

http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/26555/survey-highlights-consumer-misunderstanding-of-food-waste/

The Shocking Cost Of Food Waste

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2014/04/11/the-shocking-cost-of-food-waste/

Almost half of the world's food thrown away, report finds

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste

The Key to Ending Global Hunger Is on the Battlefield

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/10/15/global-hunger-war

Singaporeans regularly waste food, survey finds

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singaporeans-regularly/2195660.html

One third of all food wasted!

http://www.unric.org/en/food-waste/27133-one-third-of-all-food-wasted