If We Stopped Wasting Even Just a Bit Less Food, We Could Feed Everyone on Earth
According to the United Nations, it wouldn't take much to keep the world's most vulnerable from going hungry.
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Shutterstock
According to the United Nations, it wouldn’t take much to keep the world’s most vulnerable from going hungry.
From The Guardian:
If the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25% there would be enough food to feed everyone on the planet, according to the UN.
Each year 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted, including about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition.
Well-publicised attempts to combat the loss of food – such as recent laws in France that require supermarkets to distribute unsold food to charities – have highlighted the issue of food waste, identified by the UN as one of the great challenges to achieving food security.
Read more.
Also watch: John Oliver: We Waste a Third of Our Food While American Families Go Hungry
—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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Environment
Around one third of all food goes to waste, contributing immensely to greenhouse gas emissions in the process.
As obesity levels soar, cutting the vast amount of food we waste could have a major impact on reducing the effects of climate change -- as well as alleviate world hunger.
A new global group says food that fails to reach consumers or is dumped as waste could instead save lives and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says food wastage across the world -- totaling 1.3 billion tonnes of food annually -- is the largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions after China and the USA.
Disposing of food thrown away by those rich enough to afford it is an expensive problem -- but it can provide renewable energy and other benefits.
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