Friday, March 16, 2012

Stopping Hunger and Feeding the World

High food prices is one of the main factors why people go hungry. People simply cannot afford the food that's produced. Patrick Woodall, research director and senior policy advocate for Food and Water Watch. "It's not a situation where you have to massively ramp up production," Woodall told the Reuters Summit. "Even in 2008, when there were hunger riots around the world, there was enough food to feed people, it was just too expensive."

Meanwhile experts at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago this week said an estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of the food produced in the world goes uneaten. The average American throws away 33 pounds of food each month according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In a year, that means each person throws away almost 400 pounds of food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 23 percent of eggs ends up in the trash. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said 33 million tons of food waste hit landfills and incinerators in 2010, the largest solid waste product in the system.

Source

British households throw away 4.4m tonnes of edible food a year, estimates suggest - and bread is the most wasted provision of all. 32% of bread purchased by UK households is dumped when it could be eaten. 680,000 tonnes of "avoidable" bakery waste is disposed of each yea, 80% of it from packs that have been opened but not finished.

Wasted Food in UK

Bread

32%

Vegetables

24%

Potatoes

24%

Fruit

20%

Cereal products

17%

Desserts

14%

Meat and fish

13%

Dairy and eggs

8.5%

Soft drinks

7.1%

Alcoholic drinks

6.3%


Source

1 comment:

Wendell said...

Waste in any system can be reduced but not completely removed. Education is the best solution but who is responsible for educating the public?