Food goes to trash while millions starve

While millions starve in the world, half of the planet's food goes to waste... A study released in the UK shows that 50% of the foods that are produced every year are never eaten, with the garbage can as a destination. The food waste ends up also causing the overuse of other scarce resources such as water.


By Antonio Carlos Lacerda


A study released in the UK shows that 50% of the foods that are produced every year are never eaten, with the garbage can as a destination. The food waste ends up also causing the overuse of other scarce resources such as water.

Hunger is now a major world problem: about three billion people - representing nearly half the world's population - suffer from food insecurity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), reporting that even that number, unfortunately, does not stop growing. And the worst part is that the food that could feed most of these people exists and is being discarded every day, in the trash.

The Global Food Report:  "Waste not, want not," published on 10.01.2013, by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), UK, pointed out that between 30 and 50% of the food produced worldwide each year is never eaten. The percentage is 1.2 to 2 billion tonnes of food that have the trash as its destination.

Classified as "shocking" by the institution, such food waste is therefore responsible for a series of problems. Among them:

- Unsatisfactory technical engineering and agriculture;

- Inadequate infrastructure for transportation and storage;

- Supermarkets' requirement that the products be visually perfect on shelves;

- Deals "buy one, get one free" that encourage people to take home more than they need and

- Of course, lack of consumer awareness.

Food waste also causes overuse of other resources that are already in short supply, such as water and energy. According to the British report, currently around 550 billion cubic meters of water are wasted every year in the production of food that goes to waste.

And the situation could get even worse if we do not rethink how we are are consuming foods: According to the study, by 2050, water use worldwide will reach 13 trillion m³ / year, mainly due to the demand for food production.

In 2009, the campaign launched by the Akatu Institute warned the public that a third of food purchased goes straight to the trash can.

A shocking statistic that males the hunger problem much clearer is that every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of hunger.  Seventy-five percent of them are innocent children.


Translated from the Portuguese version by:

Lisa Karpova
Pravda.Ru

 

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Author`s name Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
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