by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Huge amounts of food are wasted after production. It is being discarded in processing, destroyed and hence discarded during transport, at supermarkets and in restaurant and domestic kitchens. This wasted food is, obviously, also wasted water as finds a policy brief released on August 22, 2008 at World Water Week in Stockholm.
The brief written and compiled by the Stockholm International Water Institute, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Water Management Institute shows that the current food crisis is less a crisis of production than a crisis of waste. Tossing food away is like leaving the tap running, the authors say.
"More than enough food is produced to feed a healthy global population. Distribution and access to food is a problem - many are hungry, while at the same time many overeat," the brief states. But, it says, "we are providing food to take care of not only our necessary consumption but also our wasteful habits."
What we must not forget also is that there is, I am sure, still the old food mountain and the stupidity, though no longer as publicly reported as it once was, of actually forcing farmers to dump food stuffs during either a glut or also because it is not the right shape and size or has blemishes.
"As much as half of the water used to grow food globally may be lost or wasted," says Dr. Charlotte de Fraiture, a researcher at IWMI. "Curbing these losses and improving water productivity provides win-win opportunities for farmers, business, ecosystems, and the global hungry."
"An effective water-saving strategy requires that minimizing food wastage is firmly placed on the political agenda," she said.
In the United States, for instance, as much as 30 percent of food, worth some US$48.3 billion, is thrown away. "That's like leaving the tap running and pouring 40 trillion liters of water into the garbage can - enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people," says the report.
The policy brief, "Saving Water: From Field to Fork - Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain," calls on governments to reduce by half, by 2025, the amount of food that is wasted after it is grown and outlines attainable steps for this be achieved.
"Unless we change our practices, water will be a key constraint to food production in the future," said Dr. Pasquale Steduto of FAO.
Water losses accumulate as food is wasted before and after it reaches the consumer.
In poorer countries, so the research found, a majority of uneaten food is lost before it even has a chance to be consumed. Depending on the crop, an estimated 15 to 35 percent of food may be lost in the field, while another 10 to15 percent is discarded during processing, transport and storage.
In richer countries, while production may be more efficient waste is by far greater, so states the report. "People toss the food they buy and all the resources used to grow, ship and produce the food along with it."
As this wasted food rots in landfills it generates methane, a gas that causes climate change and is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
With proper municipal composting facilities, however, this food waste would not even need to go into landfill and if we would permit the use of swill again, properly controlled and monitored, for the feeding of pigs then most of that food waste would be turned into calories and protein.
World Water Week was hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute, a policy institute that contributes to international efforts to combat the world's escalating water crisis.
We must consider the one fact too in this wasted food, as it has been stated, and that is the wasted water, in the form of irrigation (and others), and this when water resources are getting – or could be getting – scarcer due to changes in climate and in rainfall patters.
As someone once said: the next war(s) will not be fought over territory but over access to water resources; a case that always was thus in countries such as Arabia, and such.
Water wars and skirmishes have been about in those places, as well as in other countries, throughout the ages. In future, however, it may actually not be a case of just a clan against another or a rancher against another one; it could indeed be one country against another over the perceived interference with water supply and such.
Whether or not any difference can be made by us in the realm of water resource management by not wasting food, with the exception of the fact that the less food is wastes the less there has to be grown and hence less water being used for watering the plants, does not matter too much either; not wasting food on its own should be enough incentive.
Further savings in the water department could be made if the developed world at least – for I know that the quality of the municipal water and other supplies in some countries out of that realm are dubious – would stop the wasteful practice of drinking bottled water. While a number of that stuff is tap water, which may or not have been filtered and such, there are still many brands that use well and spring water, and such extraction has a bad effect on the water table and the general natural water supply.
So, time we stopped wasting food and water...
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
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At least half of all food produced worldwide is wasted
