Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Feeding the world is possible

Researchers from York University and Edinburgh University analysed the global food system using data from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.

It found that the world's population consumes around 10% more food than it needs and almost 9% is thrown away or left to spoil.
The researchers looked at losses at different stages in the production process and found that almost half of all harvested crops - or 2.1 billion tonnes - are lost, taking into account inefficiencies in production processes as well as consumer waste and over-consumption.
The study again stressed the inefficiency of livestock production, which it said produced losses of 78% on harvested crops. They found that around 1.08 billion tonnes of harvested crops are used to produce 240 million tonnes of edible animal products including meat, milk and eggs.
In 2015 a UN report found if the amount of food wasted was reduced by only 25 per cent there would be enough to feed all the people who are malnourished.

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