“Think. Eat. Save: Reduce Your Foodprint,” is the theme under which World Environment Day was observed yesterday. This year’s the focus was on ending food loss and wastage and in so doing close the hunger gap.
It is estimated that some 870 million people in the world are undernourished or do not have enough to eat on a daily basis. In addition, the vast majority of hungry people (98 per cent) live in developing countries, where almost 15% of the population is undernourished; this is according to statistics gathered by the World Food Programme (WFP).
So endemic is world hunger that childhood stunting (stunted growth that is), a long silent issue, has reached epidemic stage. WPF statistics reveals that one in four of the world’s children are stunted and in developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three. It has also found that 80 per cent of the world’s stunted children live in just 20 countries; one in six children—some 100 million—living in developing countries is underweight. And in addition, malnutrition, which is still a huge global issue, contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under the age of five each year – one third of the global total.
This is an indictment on a world which produces enough food to cater to its entire population, and then some. The problem is that the food fails to reach the people. Part of the reason so many remain hungry is because of manmade barriers like pricing, quotas and tariffs.
The UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) reckons that as much as half of all the food produced in the world – equivalent to 2 billion tonnes – ends up as waste every year.
And among the reasons for food wastage is the move away from the theory that the consumption of what we produce is economically beneficial and the almost fanatical obsession with perfection in the marketing and purchase of food items.
In the UK as much as 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers’ exacting standards on physical appearance, it says, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers, IMechE’s report, titled, ‘Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not’, reveals.
We have all seen (and some of us have been) that shopper who rejects the odd or misshapen fruit or vegetable, even if it’s fresh. We clamour for the food items that are as perfectly shaped (and coloured) as the ones we see on television or in glossy magazines. We want to buy food that simply looks good rather than paying attention to its nutritional value.
The lumpy bumpy food items that are rejected are often left to rot and then disposed of. A trip to Bourda, Stabroek, La Penitence or any of the municipal markets on any given market day will reveal skips and bins overloaded with rotting fruits and vegetables. Disturbingly too, there is often a deranged or displaced person rooting through these bins and removing those items that might only be halfway rotten.
One wonders why there is no conscious effort made by vendors to sell these items at a reduced cost so that they can perhaps recover part of the cost. There is also no empathetic thinking that they can be donated to soup kitchens, old folks’ homes, orphanages or non-governmental organisations that cater for the have-nots among us.
Of course the fallout from this would see imperfect food items not being purchased from the growers, who would also end up dumping that surfeit of food; or as is the case in the UK, not harvesting it at all.
The impact on the environment is tremendous. Not only are resources like land and water wasted to produce food that no one will eat, but the indiscriminate dumping overburdens landfills.
In the case of Georgetown, every citizen or visitor knows only too well how awful the side effects are.
World Environment Day came and went with much of the city looking much the same in spite of the efforts of many. It should be obvious that clean-up campaigns will not solve our garbage problems. The more fundamental issue here is stopping the dumping. But with the blame game in full swing, who has time to think about that?
