Here's an Idea, what if food producers produced more food to be eaten closer to where it's produced and food that never goes to retail because of physical appearance is donated to people near the producers who have food insecurity issues?
50% of the food in the world is tossed out while probably about the same amount of people in the world go hungry.
There must be a solution that can be figured out here.
Read the shocking statistics in this new report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Halton Waste Treatment Plant where some of what people throw out ends up. |
New report: as much as 2 billion tonnes of all food produced ends up as waste
Institution of
Mechanical Engineers calls on urgent action to prevent 50% of all food produced
in the world ending up as waste
10 January 2013
A new report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has found that as
much as 50% of all food produced around the world never reaches a human stomach
due to issues as varied as inadequate infrastructure and storage facilities
through to overly strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free offers and consumers
demanding cosmetically perfect food.
With UN predictions that there could be about an extra three billion
people to feed by the end of the century and an increasing pressure on the
resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the
Institution is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste.
The report ‘Global Food; Waste Not,Want
Not’ found that:
·
between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2 billion tonnes of food
produced around the world each year never reaches a human stomach;
·
as much as 30% of UK vegetable crops are not
harvested due to them failing to meet exacting standards based on their
physical appearance, while up to half of the food that’s bought in Europe and
the USA is thrown away by the consumer;
·
about 550 billion m3 of water is wasted
globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer;
·
it takes 20-50 times the amount of water to produce
1 kilogram of meat than 1 kilogram of vegetables;
·
the demand for water in food production could reach
10–13 trillion m3 a year by 2050. This is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater
than the total human use of fresh water today and could lead to more dangerous
water shortages around the world;
·
there is the potential to provide 60-100% more food
by eliminating losses and waste while at the same time freeing up land, energy
and water resources.
Dr Tim Fox, Head of Energy and Environment at the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers said:
“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This
is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as
those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and
energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution
of this food.
“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and
agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through
to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging
consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one free offers.
“As water, land and energy resources come under increasing pressure from
competing human demands, engineers have a crucial role to play in preventing food
loss and waste by developing more efficient ways of growing, transporting and
storing foods.
“But in order for this to happen Governments, development agencies and
organisation like the UN must work together to help change people’s mindsets on
waste and discourage wasteful practices by farmers, food producers,
supermarkets and consumers.”
By 2075 the UN predicts that the world’s population is set to reach around
9.5 billion, which could mean an extra three billion mouths to feed. A key
issue to dealing with this population growth is how to produce more food in a
world with resources under competing pressures – particularly given the added
stresses caused by global warming and the increasing popularity of eating meat
– which requires around 10 times the land resources of food like rice or
potatoes.
The world produces about four billion metric tonnes of food per year, but
wastes up to half of this food through poor practices and inadequate
infrastructure. By improving processes and infrastructure as well as changing
consumer mindsets, we would have the ability to provide 60-100% more food to
feed the world’s growing population.
The ‘Global Food; Waste Not,Want
Not’ report recommends that:
1.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) works with the
international engineering community to ensure governments of developed nations
put in place programmes that transfer engineering knowledge, design know-how,
and suitable technology to newly developing countries. This will help improve
produce handling in the harvest, and immediate post-harvest stages of food
production.
2.
Governments of rapidly developing countries incorporate waste
minimisation thinking into the transport infrastructure and storage facilities
currently being planned, engineered and built.
3.
Governments in developed nations devise and implement policy that changes
consumer expectations. These should discourage retailers from wasteful
practices that lead to the rejection of food on the basis of cosmetic
characteristics, and losses in the home due to excessive purchasing by
consumers.
· The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was
established in 1847 and has some of the world’s greatest engineers in its
history books. It currently has about 100,000 members, representing mechanical
engineers involved in a diversity of fields such as the automotive, rail,
aerospace, medical, power and construction industries.
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