Thirty percent of world's food wasted, new online platform seeks savings
Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:52am GMT
By Chris Arsenault
ROME, Oct 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Enough food to feed 2 billion
people is wasted every year, leading U.N. agencies to create a new
interactive platform to try to reduce the losses, which could easily feed
the world's 800 million hungry.
The Global Community of Practice of Food Loss Reduction web portal, launched
last week, allows users to get information about ways of reducing waste.
An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food, or roughly 30 percent of global
production, is lost or wasted annually, according to the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It remains unclear how effective the new platform will be in solving the
problem, but experts believe it is a step in the right direction.
"We need to close the gap between people being aware of this problem and
what they do when they are standing in the grocery store or in the kitchen,"
Dana Gunders, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S.
environmental advocacy group, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Awareness is the first step the more specific the information (available
on the portal) the more helpful it is in terms of reductions."
More than 40 percent of root crops, fruits and vegetables, 20 percent of oil
seeds and 35 percent of fish never reach the mouths of hungry people, the
FAO reported.
In developed countries, food waste usually occurs in homes or restaurants,
when consumers discard products they believe have gone rotten, or in grocery
stores if products don't look picture perfect due to slight blemishes.
Most of the developing world's spoilage happens during storage or transport,
as infrastructure for refrigeration and preservation is often inadequate.
Backers hope information on the new platform will help farmers to "share
experiences to concretely reduce losses", the FAO's Anthony Bennett said.
SOLUTIONS IN THE FIELD
If farmers in Uganda, for example, find a new technique to reduce spoilage,
they can upload information about the project to the portal so that others
can learn from it.
As part of the initiative, the World Food Programme has provided metal silos
and sophisticated storage bags to 400 small farmers in Burkina Faso and
Uganda.
Better storage facilities reduced post-harvest waste to less than two
percent during a 90-day trial period, and the WFP is now scaling up the
programme by taking it to 41,000 farmers and aiming for a 70 percent
reduction in post-harvest losses.
At first, the farmers were sceptical about changing techniques they had used
for generations, in favour of the new silos and air-tight, waterproof
storage bags.
"After watching the grain in the traditional storage units deteriorate
quickly, they expected the same (or worse) to be occurring inside the new
units," said Simon Costa, the project's manager. "Their disbelief quickly
turned to jubilation when they discovered their harvest was in perfect
condition."
A manual showing how to build similar silos is now available online.
Appropriate technologies like this don't just keep food fresh for longer,
Gunders said, they also help farmers to manage market cycles more
effectively.
Many farmers want to hold some of their produce for some time after the
harvest, as prices rise when less food is available on the market.
Small farmers are some of the worst affected by hunger in many developing
countries.
Gunders studied pea farmers in several African countries, who didn't have
access to the silos or air-tight storage bags, spraying toxic pesticides
directly on the food after harvest.
"Kids were eating the peas and literally dying from the pesticides," she
said. "The sealable bags eliminated the need for this and allowed farmers to
store the crops for longer and sell at a better price." (Reporting By Chris
Arsenault, editing by Tim Pearce)