Around the world, a broad array of efforts are being launched to tackle two pressing global problems: hunger and climate change.
The United Nation Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 had some depressing news. Four years of progress against poverty made in achieving the 17 sustainable development goals has been erased due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report also cites inflation and Russia’s war in Ukraine as turning global hunger from a “crisis into a catastrophe.” The price of food, fuel, and fertilizers comes on top of underlying factors such as poverty, inequality, inadequate governance, poor infrastructure, and low agricultural productivity, the report outlines.
The world is facing its third global food price crisis in 15 years and famine is likely to be officially declared in Somalia in the coming months, where at least one million people have already been displaced due to devastating drought conditions.
For centuries, people used everything they could: the stalk of a banana tree, vegetable peels, a carrot that grew twisted underground. Now throwing food out seems to be the normal thing to do.
Tackling the food problem by rescuing “waste” food
In Seoul, Korea, garbage cans automatically weigh how much food gets tossed in the trash. In London, England, grocers have stopped putting date labels on fruits and vegetables to reduce confusion about what is still edible, reports the New York Times.
And in California, supermarkets are required to give away – not throw away – food that is unsold but fine to eat. Governments and entrepreneurs around the world are working to tackle two pressing global problems: hunger and climate change.
Food waste is a big problem worldwide. Worldwide, food that ends up in landfills accounts for 8 to 10 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually, and that is at least double the emissions from aviation
According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, that is enough food to feed more than a billion people. Today, 31 percent of the food that is grown, shipped, or sold is wasted.
This makes the prevention of food waste the highest priority, and when prevention is not possible, the food waste hierarchy ranks the food waste treatment options from preferred to least preferred based on their negative environmental impacts.
“It’s sobering that 828 million people are undernourished today and many of them are children who should not be suffering in a world with so much food and wealth,” Concern Worldwide Chief Executive Dominic MacSorley said.
What is being done?
In the United States, we have food banks, as do other countries, that give food to those who need it. One start-up makes it easier for people to buy misshapen produce that grocery stores don’t want, and another has developed an invisible, plant-based coating to make fruits last longer.
In Asia, Europe, and the United States, several new mobile apps offer discounts on restaurant food that’s about to be thrown out.
Last year, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, began a “clean plate” campaign, calling for an end to the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, even cracking down on video bloggers who eat excessive amounts of food on camera.
When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
It all boils down to this: Worldwide, a lot of food is produced but not eaten, even as people go hungry. And that is shameful.
