Food Wastage Essay

1. It is hard to produce food. a) Food takes time to grow and mature. Besides this, there are a lot of factors that contribute towards the production of food. i. Temperature and rainfall are critical elements determining when and how often crops can be sown. While some Asian countries are able to harvest three times in a single year, food production nearly halts during dry seasons in many tropical zones and during winter cold in temperate areas. (DeRose, Messer & Millman, 1998) b) It cost a lot to maintain a good production of food. i. Investments in agricultural intensification, including higher-yield-potential seeds, fertilizers, water management and chemicals for pest control, are costly and make it unlikely that they will be easily or widely available for use by poorer farmers and countries. (DeRose, Messer & Millman, 1998) c) We are starting to lack food production area to support civilizations. i. South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics announced last month that it has signed a 99-year lease on 3. 2 million acres of land in Madagascar, which it will use to produce corn and palm oil for shipment home. (Goering, 2008) ii. The rush to buy or enter long-term leases on land has been fueled in part by the low levels of world grain stocks, despite record harvests this year, and by a growing sense that world markets cannot be trusted to supply adequate grain. (Goering, 2008) 2. People are wasting a lot of food. d) In different occasions, people waste food. i. A significant proportion of food waste is produced by the domestic household, which, in 2007, created 6,700,000 tonnes of food waste. Potatoes, bread slices and apples are respectively the most wasted foods by quantity, while salads are thrown away in the greatest proportion. e) Food products from restaurants and shops are seldom kept when they are not sold after the day. Those foods were thrown away. i. Grocery stores discard products because of spoilage or minor cosmetic blemishes. Restaurants throw away what they don’t use. (Martin, 2008) ii. Supermarkets particularly have been criticized for wasting items which are damaged or unsold (surplus food), but that often remain edible. (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire,2005) f) According to statistic, people waste more food than they eat. i. Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year, which is about 12 percent of the total waste stream. ( Trum, 1998) 3. Food wastage causes a lot of problems. g) It affects the environment by increasing waste, and pollutes the area. i. The rotting food that ends up in landfills produces methane, a major source of greenhouse gases. h) Wasting the food we have indirectly causes starvation to other people. It is because the amount of food we waste can actually feed upon many poor people. i. Each year, Americans discard more than 96 billion pounds of good food. If 5% was recovered, it could provide the equivalent of a day’s food for four million hungry people; 10%, eight million; and 25%, 20 million. (Trum, 1998) i) Wasting food also wasted our money. It costs us money to produce food and treat the food waste. i. 1 ton of rice requires a world average of 3419 m3 per ton of water. Imagine the amount of food we wasted. The amount of water wasted is even larger, and we are now low on clean potable water. Call to actions: 1. Registration of World Fund Program (WFP) to favor organizations in providing aids to people who are unable to produce enough food to support them. 2. Audiences should sign an indemnity letter on following the 5 steps towards reduce food waste: plan meal, make detail shopping list and stick to it, serve reasonable size portion food, save leftovers and eat those leftovers.