Food Waste — A Global Problem
It is recognised that food waste is one of the biggest crimes of our time, for it is believed that food waste could feed the entire world several times, and yet millions of people on all continents go to bed without food, even in our civilised countries.
How can this be?
How can this be tolerated?
How do we all contribute to food waste?
Here is what you should know before throwing food away, but before I would like to make a point and this is to discredit and shame the likes of Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, a multi-billion dollars corporation responsible for producing the most toxic and lethal products on our planet today, which include GMOs, artificial fertilisers, but also pesticides, herbicides, insecticides sprays, many of which are found in your own home, and also, most importantly medicines, for both humans and pets — for the entire list of products: https://www.bayer.com/en/products-from-a-to-z.aspx) and prove that their argument is pure propaganda in an effort to gain power ("world domination" and not in a animated-story-like happy-ending) and, of course, money — loads of it (think billions)— by producing and selling these products and by picking up the pieces if you ever (well, you will) get sick: they have a medicine that is just right for you!
As I was looking for answers about these companies, I went directly to the source: www.bayer.com and this is what I could read straight from the home page:
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
This is what they had to say: “The agricultural and food industry is facing huge challenges. It has to feed a rapidly growing world population while at the same time ensuring the best-possible conservation of our scarce natural resources. Increasingly extreme weather conditions such as droughts and flooding, limited arable land and changing dietary habits make this task even more demanding.”
“For tomorrow’s agriculture, we need new approaches aimed at increasing both productivity and environmental protection.” Written in bold and larger characters after the first paragraph, words from Liam Condon, member of the board of management of Bayer and president of the crop science division.
The answer for this company is to sell their GMOs to the world and their insecticides, pesticides and herbicides — that their seeds are genetically altered to resist, which means that each plant can receive excessive amount of lethal chemicals and still are able survive, or die, but not before being tricked to produce more offsprings in the hope for the survival of their species — and this is how it goes about it: “Farmers Need to Protect their Crops from Weeds and other Pests. Every year, as much as 40 percent of the world’s potential harvests are lost to damaging pests, including weeds. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), these losses could double without pesticides and other crop protection practices. That’s why most farmers, both organic and conventional, use some type of pesticide to keep weeds and other pests from hurting their crops.” However, this is terribly misleading.
It is a fact that some pesticides are allowed in Organic farming; however, they must originate from natural sources and not deadly petrochemicals. This is also another reason why I have lost faith in the new organic and would rather look for more environmental-friendly alternatives, in particular, Biodynamic farming (Demeter certified) for such farms are not allowed to work against nature. Farmers cannot use any pesticides, nor can they use antibiotics to treat (or prevent) diseases. How do they do protect their crop from bugs and stocks from diseases? The answer is simple: “The enemy of my enemy are my friends.”
Let me explain...
In conventional farming, an apple or a strawberry may be sprayed by up to 20 different chemicals (all labelled under the umbrella of pesticides) so that bugs, fungi, weed or other inconveniences do not savage the crops. Usually, the main ingredient used is Glyphosate (Round-up), the well-known petrochemical-derived weed-killer. In organic farming, vegetables or fruits can be sprayed with some pesticides, but they must be from natural sources. Both of these methods destroy nature in their own way. Well, one being more deadly than the other, I may have to agree. On the other hand, biodynamic farms, if a bug is seen to damage the crops, its sworn enemy (or simply a predator) is brought up to the seen, chasing the bugs elsewhere.
“[Without glyphosate] The organic matter content of the soil is likely to be detrimentally affected. Yields would decline again and increased ploughing would release more CO2 from the soil into the atmosphere.” Another bold statement in the middle of the page by Richard Hatherell, farmer, in the United Kingdom
This bold statement is also misleading as research as shown that mass-farming (and non-rotation of fields) is at the root cause of corrosion of topsoil and the reason why our soil is so depleted from all “organic matter”.
“There is no single approach in the crop protection fight.” Bayer’s article goes further, adding: “Farmers today have a variety of tools, including state-of-the-art pesticides, advanced data analytics, and precision technologies [GMOs]. While these tools are individually powerful, when farmers use them together, it enhances their effectiveness while minimising the environmental impact of agriculture.”
Glyphosate impact on the environment is not only the subject of thousands of research but it has been shown to be a contaminant in rivers and our water system. So the impact is well beyond that of agriculture and weeds. Drinking unfiltered water from the tap is, research shows, as bad as eating such contaminated foods.
This is what the “Advancing together as one” article claimed: “Today’s milestone means that the two leading innovators in agriculture will now come together as one to shape agriculture through breakthrough innovation [GMOs] for the benefit of farmer, consumers and our planet.”
This is not only shocking to me but also sad. It is sad to think that either they think we are stupid enough to believe them or that we are stupid enough to wanting to believe them and buy their genetically-modified-pesticides-ridden-so-called-foods.
How could spraying deadly chemicals on a plant destined to end up on our plate be for our benefit or that of the planet?
Now this is the counterargument to such misleading and somewhat infuriating arguments:
I do applaud supermarkets giving unsold food to charity, but yet, it does not relieve them of their responsibility in driving food waste. Supermarkets have created a vicious circle of offer-and-demand, using their power to force farmers to obey their rules or go bust, and to accept their pitiful buying price, leading many farmers to bankruptcy or forced to make changing in the way they work to minimise costs and literally survive.
As always, these changes involve quantity over quality (now you understand the reasons behind the rise in GMO-crops production and why the soil is constantly used, seasons after seasons), leading to overproduction and drops in prices.
Some of the most dramatic sources of waste are also created by supermarkets’ demand: a farm can destroy 40 tonnes of food that would otherwise be eaten, but won’t, because their produce was not pretty enough. Each year, it is estimated that farms waste up to 37,000 tonnes of produce in the UK Only. These is enough to provide 250,000 people with their recommended five-a-day for a year!
“Approximately one-third of the food we produce in the UK is never eaten. Take a minute to think about that - millions of tonnes of good food, and all the resources that go into producing it, squandered. Bonkers, isn't it?
Such profligacy is not just immoral, it's unnecessary. When I took some of the Hammonds' "reject" parsnips and offered them to High Street shoppers, they were only too happy to take them. People couldn't believe all this great food was being dumped. Supermarkets may claim that consumers will only accept ramrod-straight carrots and flawless apples. But I simply don't buy it.” Writes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for the BBC, concluding: “The horrendous waste caused by retailers has to stop. And people should ask their supermarkets to make that happen.
However, we can't ask the big guns to rein it in unless we're prepared to do our bit too. And we have to face the fact that almost 50% of food wastage in the UK is domestic - the stuff we buy but don't eat. And surely we have the same responsibility as big companies not to discard perfectly edible food.
I don't believe we're deliberately wasteful. Seeing vast quantities of food needlessly destroyed would make most of us extremely uncomfortable. The problem is that we don't see it. The average UK household wastes £700 worth of food every year. But of course, it's not all at once - it's a few slices of bread here, a bag of salad there, a couple of brown bananas every week.”
So, do you still believe that GMOs and roundup are the answer to food shortage, when there is no shortage to speak of?
I believe that pictures do speak a thousand words, and so I have showed key pictures but the one below, even if is sourced from Wikipedia (a site I avoid at all cost), is graphic enough.
This is what wikipedia exposed: “The single largest producer of food waste in the United Kingdom is the domestic household. In 2007, households created 6,700,000 tonnes of food waste – accounting for 19 per cent of all municipal solid waste. Potatoes account for the largest quantity of avoidable food disposed of; 359,000 tonnes per year are thrown away, 49 per cent (177,400 tonnes) of which are untouched. Bread slices account for the second food type most disposed of (328,000 tonnes per year), and apples the third (190,000 tonnes per year). Salad is disposed of in the greatest proportion - 45 per cent of all salad purchased by weight will be thrown away uneaten. Much of the food thrown away could have been avoided (4,100,000 tonnes, 61 per cent of the total amount of food waste) and with better management could have been eaten or used. Unavoidable foods, such as vegetable peelings and tea bags, account for 19 per cent of the total, with the remaining 20 per cent being unavoidable through preferences (e.g. bread crusts) and cooking types (e.g. potato skins). However, the vast majority of consumers (90%) are unaware of the amount of food they throw away; individuals who believed that their household wasted no food were shown to be throwing away 88 kg of avoidable food per year. The amount of food waste produced by a household and its occupants is affected by several factors; WRAP found the most impacting factors to be: firstly the size of the household, followed by the age of the individual occupants and finally the household composition (e.g. single occupant household).[40] The other factors: job status, lifestage, ethnicity and occupation grouping of individuals were found to have less correlation between the amount of avoidable waste.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste_in_the_United_Kingdom)
These numbers are taken from 2007.
Over 10 years later, today, the number may well have more than doubled. A new study would be greatly appreciated.
“8.4 million people in the UK are struggling to afford to eat.
This is equivalent to the entire population of London!!!”
Wasted food is estimated to cost each British household £250–£400 per year, accumulating to £15,000–£24,000 over a lifetime. This comes from the total purchasing cost of the food against what is thrown away uneaten.
Households waste about 6.7 million tons of food per year, much of which could be avoided.
A further 1.9 millions tons is wasted by the food industry, which include farmers, growers, manufacturers, and processors, but also wholesalers, retailers, and food services companies, meaning that waste reach massive proportion at any stage, from the growing to all aspects of the distribution channel according to The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP. 2018).
“Households waste about 6.7 million tons of food per year.
A further 1.9 millions tons is wasted by the food industry.”
Newly restated figures from May 2018 show a waste trend that is not improving, quite far from it, depending on how we look at the new definition of “food waste”.
Total estimate for UK post-farm gate food waste (2015) remains 10.2 Million tonnes.
The baseline covers household food waste and data for the supply chain: retail, manufacture and the hospitality & food service sector.
Total household food waste is now reported as 7.1 million tonnes.
The Courtauld Commitment 2025 (C2025) Baseline:
“The C2025 baseline covers household food waste as well as data for the supply chain: retail, manufacture and the hospitality & food service sector.
The C2025 food waste prevention target is to reduce food & drink waste arising in the UK by 20% by 2025 compared to 2015, calculated as a relative reduction per head of population. Achieving the target would reduce per capita food waste from 156kg per person to 125 kg per person, resulting in 1.5 million tonnes a year less food waste arising in 2025 compared to 2015.” Explain WRAP (wrap.org.uk).
No longer food given to pets is categorised as food waste; therefore, explaining the slight drop in the figures as shown below.
250,000 tonnes of the food that goes to waste each year is still edible (WRAP), yet, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Voices of the Hungry (fao.org, 2016), 8.4 million people in the UK are struggling to afford to eat. This is equivalent to the entire population of London! (telegraph.co.uk 2/01/2018, WRAP)
4.7 million of these people are malnourished, living in severely food-insecure homes. This means that their food intake is far from being optimum and children regularly experience physical sensations of hunger. UN figures also show that 5.6% of people aged 15 or over struggle to get enough food. A further 4.5% report that they have been a full day without anything to eat.
Sad it is that the amount of edible food wasted is equivalent to 650 millions meals!
Fruits and Vegetables top the list of most wasted food (FAO) in the UK but also the world around. Second on the list are cereals and third roots and tubers. Long-life foods such as pulses and vegetable oils are the least wasted foods.
It makes sense that the waste of fresh foods is more than dried foods, as the shelf-life of fresh produce is much-reduced while dried foods can be stored for years, even after their “best before date.”
Indeed, some of the waste is made up of things like peelings, cores and bones, but the majority is, or once was, perfectly good food, and most of it ends up in landfills where it rots and releases methane (a damaging green house gas). Throwing away food is also a huge waste of energy, but also of the water and packaging used in its production, transportation and storage. “If we all stopped wasting the food which could have been eaten, it would have the same CO2 impact as taking 1-in-4 cars off UK roads.” (recyclenow.com).
“The Government will set up a pilot scheme to reduce food waste, Environment Secretary Michael Gove has announced today. The scheme will be supported by £15 million of additional funding which has been allocated to tackle food waste.
Currently around 43,000 tonnes of surplus food is redistributed from retailers and food manufacturers every year. It is estimated a further 100,000 tonnes of food - equating to 250 million meals a year - is edible and readily available but goes uneaten. Instead, this food is currently sent away for generating energy from waste, anaerobic digestion [to create biogas to be used as fuel], or animal feed.
The pilot scheme will be developed over the coming months in collaboration with businesses and charities. The scheme will launch in 2019/20.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said: “Nobody wants to see good food go to waste. It harms our environment, it’s bad for business – and it’s morally indefensible. Every year, around 100,000 tonnes of readily available and perfectly edible food is never eaten. This has got to change. In the coming months we will work closely with business, charities and volunteers to deliver a new scheme to tackle this problem.”
The scheme will specifically address surplus food from retail and manufacturing. This is just one part of the problem - food waste in the UK totals 10.2 million tonnes per year, of which 1.8 million tonnes comes from food manufacture, 1 million from the hospitality sector, and 260,000 from retail, with the remainder from households. Further action to cut food waste from all sources is being considered as part of Defra’s Resources and Waste Strategy, which will be published later this year.
Defra is commissioning work to improve the evidence base around food waste, including understanding why more surplus food is not being redistributed. This work will inform the design of the scheme, ensuring it drives down food waste in the most effective possible way.” (GOV.UK October 2018: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/action-to-reduce-food-waste-announced).
Surplus food is food that isn’t going to be sold — but which is still edible — in part, due to over-production, labelling errors or even short shelf-life. Surplus food occurs everywhere in the supply chain:
Farms: 100,000-500,000 tonnes
Processing and manufacturing: 52,000-160,000 tonnes
Wholesale and distribution: 80,000-120,000 tonnes
Retail: 47,000-110,000 tonnes (figures from WRAP)