According to staggering new
statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced
worldwide for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to
some 1.3 billion tons per year.

In the developing
world, over 40 percent of food losses occur after harvest-while
being stored or transported, and during processing and packing. In
industrialized countries, more than 40 percent of losses occur as a
result of retailers and consumers discarding unwanted but often
perfectly edible food.

 

At a time when the
land, water, and energy resources necessary to feed a global
population of 6.9 billion are increasingly limited-and when at
least 1 billion people remain chronically hungry-food losses mean a
waste of those resources and a failure of our food system to meet
the needs of the poor.

 

The Worldwatch
Institute’s target=”_blank”>Nourishing the Planet
project, a two-year evaluation of
environmentally sustainable agricultural innovations to alleviate
hunger, is highlighting ways to make the most of the food that is
produced and to make more food available to those who need it
most.

 

According to
Tristram Stuart, a contributing author of Worldwatch’s State of
the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet report,
some 150 million tons of grains are lost annually in low-income
countries, six times the amount needed to meet the needs of all the
hungry people in the developing world.

 

Meanwhile,
industrialized countries waste some 222 million tons of perfectly
good food annually, a quantity nearly equivalent to the 230 million
tons that sub-Saharan Africa produces in a
year.

 

Unlike farmers in
many developing countries, however, agribusinesses in industrial
countries have numerous tools at their disposal to prevent food
from spoiling-including pasteurization and preservation facilities,
drying equipment, climate-controlled storage units, transport
infrastructure, and chemicals designed to expand
shelf-life.

 

“All this may
ironically have contributed to the cornucopian abundance that has
fostered a culture in which staggering levels of ‘deliberate’ food
waste are now accepted or even institutionalized,” writes Stuart in
his chapter, “Post-Harvest Losses: A Neglected
Field.”

 

“Throwing
away cosmetically ‘imperfect’ produce on farms, discarding edible
fish at sea, over-ordering stock for supermarkets, and purchasing
or cooking too much food in the home, are all examples of
profligate negligence toward food.”

Nourishing the
Planet researchers traveled to 25 countries across sub-Saharan
Africa, meeting with 350 farmers’ groups, NGOs, government
agencies, and scientists.

 

“This amount of
loss is shocking considering that many experts estimate that the
world will need to double food production in the next half-century
as people eat more meat and generally eat better,” says Danielle
Nierenberg, Nourishing the Planet project director. “It would make
good sense to invest in making better use of what is already
produced.”

 

“Humanity is
approaching – and in some places exceeding – the limits of
potential farmland and water supplies that can be used for
farming,” notes Worldwatch Institute Executive Director Robert
Engelman. “We’re already facing food price spikes and the early
impacts of human-caused climate change on food production. We can’t
afford to overlook simple, low-cost fixes to reduce food
waste.” 

 

Nourishing the
Planet offers the following three low-cost approaches that can go a
long way toward making the most of the abundance that our food
system already produces. Innovations in both the developing and
industrialized worlds include:

• 
  
  
  Getting surpluses to those who need
  it. As mountains of food are thrown out
  every day in the cities of rich countries, some of the poorest
  citizens still struggle to figure out their next meal. Feeding
  America coordinates a nationwide network of food banks that
  receive donations from grocery chains. Florida’s Harry Chapin Food
  Bank, one of Feeding America’s partners, distributed 5.2 million
  kilograms of food in 2010.
  In New York City, City Harvest collects some
  12.7 million kilograms of excess food each year from restaurants,
  grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms and
  delivers it to nearly 600 New York City food programs. Similarly,
  London Street FoodBank utilizes volunteers to collect unused food
  items from London businesses and get them to food banks around the
  city.
  
  

• 
  
  
  Raising consumer awareness and
  reducing waste to landfills.
  Those who can easily afford to buy food-and throw it
  away-rarely consider how much they discard or find alternatives to
  sending unwanted food to the landfill.
  In 2010, however, San Francisco became the first
  city to pass legislation requiring all households to
  separate both recycling and compost from garbage. By asking
  residents to separate their food waste, a new era of awareness is
  being fostered by the initiative. Nutrient-rich compost created by
  the municipal program is made available to area organic farmers and
  wine producers, helping to reduce resource consumption in
  agriculture. The Love Food
  Hate Waste website-an awareness campaign of the U.K.-based
  organization Wrap-provides online recipes for using leftovers as
  well as tips and advice for reducing personal food
  waste.  
  
  

• 
  
  
  Improving storage and processing for
  small-scale farmers in developing countries.
  In the absence of expensive, Western-style grain stores and
  processing facilities, smallholders can undertake a variety of
  measures to prevent damage to their harvests. In Pakistan, the
  United Nations helped 9 percent of farmers cut their storage losses
  up to 70 percent by simply replacing jute bags and mud
  constructions with metal grain storage containers. And Purdue
  University is helping communities in rural Niger maintain
  year-round cow pea supplies by making low-cost, hermetically sealed
  plastic bags available through the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage
  (PICS) program.
  
  

State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish
the Planet is accompanied by informational materials including
briefing documents, summaries, an innovations database, videos, and
podcasts, all available at href=”http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=bfd6o5dab&et=1106264506461&s=30366&e=001prnfRnX0Tzw1ho1BNeFADe1lXzcUlNPhESMrKmjdzLrLU-eIJwm76Vje1ZRONydAqOzHHgFt-6Ar-3KaEkooXch5xV0DeAn4JMaWPGVIFKDfdiheIucznYrlCbf8HybkbWA-0W4Eb3-Y6D5HCzkSRw==”
target=”_blank”>www.NourishingthePlanet.org.

Source: blogs.worldwatch.org