Sunday, February 23, 2014

Rebecca Smithers — Almost half of the world's food thrown away, report finds

As much as half of all the food produced in the world – equivalent to 2bn tonnes – ends up as waste every year, engineers warned in a report published on Thursday.

The UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) blames the "staggering" new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and Western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with "poor engineering and agricultural practices", inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities.

In the face of United Nations predictions that there could be about an extra 3 billion people to feed by the end of the century and growing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the IMechE is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste.
So much for efficiency of markets. Add this to chronic unemployment and boom-bust cycles.

The Guardian (UK)
Almost half of the world's food thrown away, report finds
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
(h/t JR Barch in the comments)

5 comments:

mike norman said...

And we deny food stamps, which are pieces of paper that we can issue without limit. Instead, food gets thown away and we say "we don't have the money." Sick. Vicious, twisted and sick.

Matt Franko said...

Mike,

Our majesterial people are currently f**king morons... this is the kind of thing you see with this... its like being on a plane where you notice that 2 chimpanzees are occupying the two front seats... they are unqualified to occupy the positions they have... they are stupid and blind....

btw I am not impressed nor placated by the communique out of the G20 Tom posted up thread... it sounds like more monetarist thinking that somehow monetarist policies can "increase growth"... all folly and "confidence fairy" type stuff... they make NO mention about spending increases at all....

rsp,

googleheim said...

G20 ? watch out for backdoor MMT to justify austerity ... they will cover up the failed policy by using MMT variants ... smoke screens

Anonymous said...

My apologies Tom et al .... I should have mentioned that the Guardian article re the report is dated Thursday, 10 Jan 2013. However, I have'nt heard of anyone taking up the issue since then?? I think we are the only species on the planet this wasteful??

Tom Hickey said...

The report is current, JR. I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere either.