Food Issues, Hunger, Unhealthy and Wasteful: 1) 783 Million People Face Chronic Hunger. Yet The World Wastes 19 Per Cent Of Its Food, UN says; 2) Makers Of ‘Food, Inc.’ Sequel Launch Impact Campaign Around Pressing Issues
1) 783 Million People Face Chronic Hunger. Yet The World Wastes 19 Per Cent Of Its Food
Courtesy of Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished: Mar 27th, 2024
By Carlos Mureithi, The Associated Press
The world wasted an estimated 19 per cent of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report.
The U.N. Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report, published Wednesday, tracks the progress of countries to halve food waste by 2030.
The U.N. said the number of countries reporting for the index nearly doubled from the first report in 2021. The 2021 report estimated that 17 per cent of the food produced globally in 2019, or 931 million metric tons (1.03 billion tons), was wasted, but authors warned against direct comparisons because of the lack of sufficient data from many countries.
The report is co-authored by UNEP and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), an international charity.
Researchers analyzed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilograms (about 174 pounds) of food annually, equal to at least 1 billion meals wasted worldwide daily.
Most of the waste — 60 per cent — came in households. About 28 per cent came from food service, or restaurants, with about 12 per cent from retailers.
“It is a travesty,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, the focal point for food waste at UNEP. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it is a complicated problem, but through collaboration and systemic action, it is one that can be tackled.”
The report comes at a time when 783 million people around the world face chronic hunger and many places facing deepening food crises.
Food waste is also a global concern because of the environmental toll of production, including the land and water required to raise crops and animals and the greenhouse gas emissions it produces, including methane, a powerful gas that has accounted for about 30 percent of global warming since pre-industrial times.
Food loss and waste generates 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank third after China and the U.S.
Fadila Jumare, a Nigeria-based project associate at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics who has studied prevention of food waste in Kenya and Nigeria, said the problem further disadvantages many people who are already food insecure and cannot afford healthy diets.
“For humanity, food waste means that less food is available to the poorest population,” said Jumare, who wasn’t involved in the report.
Brian Roe, a food waste researcher at Ohio State University who wasn’t involved with the report, said the index is important to tackling food waste.
“The key takeaway is that reducing the amount of food that is wasted is an avenue that can lead to many desirable outcomes — resource conservation, fewer environmental damages, greater food security, and more land for uses other than as landfills and food production,” said Roe, who wasn’t involved in the report.
The report showed notable growth in coverage of food waste in low- and middle-income countries, the authors said. But it may fall to wealthier nations to lead in international cooperation and policy development to reduce food waste, they said.
The report said many governments, regional and industry groups are using public-private partnerships to reduce food waste and its contributions to climate and water stress. Governments and municipalities collaborate with businesses in the food supply chain, whereby businesses commit to measure food waste.
The report said food redistribution — including donating surplus food to food banks and charities — is significant in tackling food waste among retailers.
One group doing that is Food Banking Kenya, a nonprofit that gets surplus food from farms, markets, supermarkets and packing houses and redistributes it to schoolchildren and vulnerable populations. Food waste is an increasing concern in Kenya, where an estimated 4.45 million tons of food is wasted every year.
“We positively impact the society by providing nutritious food and also positively impact the environment by reducing the emission of harmful gases,” said John Mukuhi, the group’s co-founder and executive director.
The report’s authors said they found that the differences in per capita household food waste between high-income and lower-income countries were surprisingly small.
Richard Swannel, a co-author and director of Impact Growth at WRAP, said that shows food waste “is not a rich world problem. It’s a global problem.”
“The data is really clear on this point: that here is a problem right around the world and one that we could all tackle tomorrow to save ourselves money and reduce environmental impact,” he said.
2) Makers Of ‘Food, Inc.’ Sequel Launch Impact Campaign Around Pressing Issues
16 YEARS LATER, NEW PROBLEMS HAVE ARISEN AND OLD PROBLEMS GOT WORSE
Courtesy of Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished: Mar 29th, 2024
The Oscar -nominated documentary “ Food, Inc ” helped change the way many consumers think about the systems behind the things we eat.
But in the 16 years since it came out, new problems have arisen and old problems got worse, magnified in part by shortages during the pandemic. They’re given a spotlight in a sequel, “ Food, Inc 2,” arriving in theatres and on digital in April.
The filmmakers are going one step further, too: The activist media company Participant, and producers River Road and Magnolia Pictures, are launching a multi-faceted campaign to raise awareness about farm workers rights, corporate consolidation and ultra-processed foods.
The campaign, announced Thursday, is in partnership with: The Open Markets Institute, a non-profit that “uses research and journalism to expose the dangers of monopolization”; The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, supporting the rights of farmworkers; And FoodFight USA, the nonpartisan movement started by entrepreneurs Todd Wagner and Lori McCreary with a goal of “cleaning up” the American food supply, which they estimate is 70% ultra-processed foods.
In October, California became the first state to ban four chemicals from processed food and drinks sold in California by 2027. The chemicals — red dye no. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and propyl paraben — are still used in popular products like Peeps, the popular marshmallow chicks most associated with Easter. The chemical has been linked to cancer and has been banned from makeup for more than 30 years.
“The passing of the California Food Safety Act and the subsequent introduction of similar bills in five additional states illustrate the timeliness of (the) documentary,” Wagner said in a statement. “People are beginning to recognize how tainted the U.S. food supply is and that many of the chemicals in our food are banned in other countries.”
All four chemicals are already banned in foods in the European Union.
David Linde the CEO of Participant noted that the company’s campaign for the first “Food, Inc” “supported the first major piece of food safety legislation since the 1930s” referring to the Food Safety Modernization Act, which Barack Obama signed into law in 2011. Linde said the company is proud to “continue the critical work of galvanizing change in the food industry.”
“Food, Inc 2,” directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo and produced by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, will play in select theatres on April 9 before its digital release on April 12.
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