As concern about waste grows, researchers and commercial partners around the world are working to turn what’s now being left behind or burned into new, useful products. By doing so, they hope to not only reduce the adverse environmental impacts of agriculture but also provide a new source of income for farmers.
‘Food loss and waste also amount to a major squandering of resources including water, land, energy, labour and capital,’ said Professor Montse Jorba Rafart, an expert in agrifood technologies from Leitat, a Spanish technological centre.
Instead, this waste could become a sustainable solution for another resource-heavy agricultural sector – animal feed.
According to the FAO, 30% of food is lost or wasted along the supply chain every year. This is a whopping 1.3 billion metric tons of food that doesn’t ever reach the consumer. This lost or wasted food could be used to feed 1.6 billion people every year. In Africa, the losses are even higher: between 30% and 50%.
In honor of Earth Day, I thought it would be a good opportunity to gather together some of our most salient pieces on the environment and the food system. The pieces are grouped into three main sections: agriculture, food waste, and oceans. – MB
Guest author: Erica Gies | Twitter:@egies This article previously appeared in Ensia. It appears here by permission under a Creative Commons license. Food and yard […]
[This piece originally appeared in Ensia on October 29, 2015. It is republished here under a Creative Commons license.] By Mary Hoff It was bound […]
As a follow up to the last post on Thanksgiving leftovers, I thought I’d share my backstop for mopping up Thanksgiving leftovers and minimizing waste. […]
Not all leftovers are created equal. Turkey is nearly equally valuable three days later as it is on Thanksgiving day. Green beans, not so much.
Two stories hit the same day in remarkable parallel. The first from France: French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food […]
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