In “Wasted: How America is Losing up to 40% of its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill” (2017), the author says that a lot of food is wasted through the supply chain. The author states that food is lost on the farm when it is being prepared for distribution. That occurs at the time when some of it drop off and does not get picked. The author says that food is also lost at the processing stages, storage rooms, and retail stores (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). The moment lettuce is harvested, some of it gets wasted when tossed aside during transportation. The amount of food wasted then accumulates with time until it reaches plenty of wastage. The waste is not only realized in the food product. The energy is still felt in terms of the money used in transportation, the amount that went into labor, fertilizer money, and even the water used. That points out a lot of waste that is being witnessed. There is a need to develop sound food conservation strategies to reduce the costs incurred due to food wastage.
Food wastage does not occur because a lot of food exists. It occurs because of the rate of laziness that people have. The laziness in people costs the world a lot of resources. For instance, the annual amount of food that gets disposed of and uneaten amounts to $218 billion (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). The figure represents 1.3% of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States of America (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). The highest amount of wastage is recorded in families. Reports by ReFED show that carelessness is what makes most families heavily contribute towards food wastage (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). There is this habit of families always cooking more food than they need. They then become unable to finish the food and decide to throw the remaining amounts away. The food thrown into the trashcan can be in small amounts but still greatly impact the amounts and rates of wastage. The moment the food is accumulated over time, it will not be surprising that a family has disposed of a lot of food. That is very discouraging when it comes to food conservation. The food thrown away wastes the energy channeled into the production process (Foote & McKinney, 2018). The food wastes away the labour, fertilizer, distribution, and processing costs incurred before the food lands on the table.
The most important thing that needs to be done when food is being handled is to rely more on the EPA food recovery hierarchy. The hierarchy describes the priorities that surround managing excess food. The essential things to be aware of when handling such food are reducing, reusing, and recycling. The key thing that needs to be communicated to the families is reducing the volume of the surplus food generated (Foote & McKinney, 2018). It is good for families to ensure they are using what they know they will finish. Reducing the volume of surplus food generated helps in minimizing wastage. If one accidentally produces a surplus, it is good to donate the surplus food that the family won’t use. Donating surplus food helps in spreading positivity in society. It also helps in preventing more wastage from being realized from the production process that the food underwent. That is important in making significant change.
The main reason people should embrace the culture of conserving food is to reduce the wastage of resources. A lot of energy is involved when the food is converted from the seed level to the time when it graces our tables (Sheikh et al., 2022). Plenty of energy and costs must be realized before it is converted to finished products. Food conservation is needed to ensure that sustainability in productivity is reached. If food is not wasted, then the number of people who die of hunger will be significantly reduced. The number of animals who also die of starvation will also reduce. That is because it will be very easy to engage in programs that give room to donations for the poor. Streamlining the food system is needed to prevent the world from going towards a deep ditch. In a world where half of the population was to waste food, more than a quarter of the remaining population would die of hunger (Reutter et al., 2017). That also shows that streamlining the food system requires individual effort. One must be sure that one wants to amend their way before actively conserving food.
It is estimated that food waste also consumes at least 19 to 27% of the fertilizers used in the United States of America (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). These fertilizers can also lead to increased water pollution when they get washed into the water bodies. That shows that wasting food also leads to massive environmental impacts hitting people. The same fertilizers can potentially cause greenhouse gas emissions (Sun et al., 2018). That means that the production of food costs the world a lot. Thus, wasting the same food that was supposed to be acting as a solution to people’s problems is a big loss. The world losses a lot more than it can imagine. In the united states alone, food accounts for 21% of municipal solid waste. Food waste also comprises 2.6% of the U.S. greenhouse gas emission (Gunders & Bloom, 2017). That means that when we waste food, we also tend to waste an important part of our life. Wasting food makes us much more vulnerable to the problems initially planted by the production process. That also communicates the need to develop sound food conservation techniques. It communicates the need to develop an EPA food recovery hierarchy.
References
Foote, J., & McKinney, A. (2018). Reducing food waste footprint in a university setting. The Lancet Planetary Health, p. 2, S30. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30115-3/fulltext
Gunders, D., & Bloom, J. (2017). Wasted: How America is losing up to 40 percent of its food from farm to fork to landfill. https://www.ccrrc.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/03/wasted-food-IP.pdf
Reutter, B., Lant, P., Reynolds, C., & Lane, J. (2017). Food waste consequences: environmentally extended input-output as a framework for analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production, pp. 153, 506–514. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652616314457
Sheikh, M. R., Ali, N. A., & Aslam, A. (2022). Food Wastage Footprint, Food Security, Environment and Economic Growth Nexus in Developing Countries. https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/84742
Sun, S. K., Lu, Y. J., Gao, H., Jiang, T. T., Du, X. Y., Shen, T. X., … & Wang, Y. B. (2018). Impacts of food wastage on water resources and environment in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 185, 732-739. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652618306802
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