Llewellyn's 2013 Daily Planetary Guide

[Why Syzygy]

10. The pity is...

"We" waste too much food. I've addressed this in my own shopping habits. I rarely have to throw anything out since gaining the awareness.

How the world manages to waste half its food

Between 30 and 50 percent of all the food that’s produced on the planet is lost and wasted without ever reaching human stomachs. That’s the stunning takeaway from a new report (pdf) from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

We’ve covered food waste before on this blog, but those figures seemed staggering to the point of absurdity. So I thought I’d comb through the report and pull out some of the concrete details that help illustrate just how the world can actually waste this much food.

...

After a few pages of this, it doesn’t seem so absurd to think that the world really does squander up to half its food. And all that rubbishing has major consequences. Not only is it a waste of energy and water and land, but it’s a tragedy in its own right, given that some 870 million people suffer from chronic malnourishment.

On the plus side, this is a problem that can be tackled. For poorer countries, simply building better food-storage buildings could cut down massively on waste in places like Pakistan or Ghana (which lost 50 percent of its stored maize in 2008). Better harvesting technology and techniques could also help, although the report suggests that some nations like India will need more sweeping societal and political changes to cut down on waste.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/how-the-world-manages-to-waste-half-its-food