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Sunday, June 02, 2013

Food Facts to Chew Upon

About one-third of all food produced globally, worth around 1 trillion U.S. dollars, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.


The average German food wastage amounts to 15 kg food per year while British wastage 9 times higher than the Germany. 30 per cent of the UK’s vegetable crop wasted occurs on the corporate end because the food does not meet aesthetic standards, e.g. size and color. Japan wasted about 20 million tons of food annually which is equivalent to 30 percent of the country’s production. Americans contribution to food waste was at about 28.25 million tons per annum.
In developing countries, most food loss or wasted occurs during production stage due to poor infrastructure, low levels of technology, and low investment in food production systems. At the consumption stage, the food wastage amount is almost zero. Bangladesh contributes insignificant share to the global home and it mostly occurs during food production stage due to poor technology and infrastructure. It is pointed that during pre and post- harvesting processes almost 12 percent rice and 15 percent wheat are wasted. It is further reported that 3 percent of rice is wasted due to unconventional seed conservation practices. The wasted rate of perishable items like vegetables and fruits are alarmingly high is nearly 40 percent.

The FAO reported that from 2010 to 2012, 870 million people across the world were food insecure though about half of the 4.4 billion tons of food that is produced worldwide annually is never eaten. While millions of poor people are starve everyday across the world.
The global food production uses quarter of all habitable land which is responsible for 70% of fresh water consumption, and 80% of deforestation. It is the largest unique driver of biodiversity loss and land-use change. IPCC reported that agricultural is the third largest contributor to global emissions by sector, contributing 37 percent of the total green house gases (GHGs). Methane accounts for just under half of total agricultural emissions. Hence, a huge portion of food’s emissions come from the food supply chain including food production, processing, packaging, distributing, selling food, cooking, and household transport.

While it is true that many animals graze on land that would be unsuitable for cultivation, the demand for meat has taken millions of productive acres away. Meat consumption is reaching an all-time high around the world, quadrupling in the last 50 years. There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people. According to the Worldwatch Institute, global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of fowl being raised for human dinner tables has nearly quadrupled in the same time period, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. U.S. beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970, during which time it has more than doubled in Asia.

There is some evidence to suggest that the human digestive system was not designed for meat consumption and processing, which could help explain why there is such high incidence of heart disease, hypertension, and colon and other cancers. Add to this the plethora of drugs and antibiotics applied as a salve to unnatural factory farming conditions and growing occurrences of meat-based diseases like E. coli and Salmonella. Increasing meat production and consumption continues despite mounting evidence that meat-based diets are unhealthy, and that just about every aspect of meat production -- from grazing-related loss of cropland and open space, to the inefficiencies of feeding vast quantities of water and grain to cattle in a hungry world, to pollution from "factory farms" -- is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences. Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke calls factory farming "a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater and air pollution problems." U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Circle Four Farms, a Utah-based pork producer, hosts a three-million gallon waste lagoon. When lagoons like this spill into rivers and lakes as happened in North Carolina in 1995, the result can be environmentally catastrophic. Meat production has also been linked to severe erosion of billions of acres of once-productive farmland and to the destruction of rainforests. Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.

Livestock raised for food produces 130 times the excrement of the human population, some 87,000 pounds per second. The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that 20 tons of livestock manure is produced annually for every U.S. household. The much-publicized 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska dumped 12 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, but the relatively unknown 1995 New River hog waste spill in North Carolina poured 25 million gallons of excrement and urine into the water, killing an estimated 10 to 14 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of coastal shellfishing beds. Hog waste spills have caused the rapid spread of a virulent microbe called Pfiesteria piscicida, which has killed a billion fish in North Carolina alone.

The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition. Because 90 percent of U.S. and European meat eaters' grain consumption is indirect (first being fed to animals), westerners each consume 2,000 pounds of grain a year. Most grain in underdeveloped countries is consumed directly. Reducing meat production by just 10 percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people. Authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds. The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that "you'd save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year."

Ninety percent of commercially available eggs come from chickens raised on factory farms, and six billion "broiler" chickens emerge from the same conditions. Ninety percent of U.S.-raised pigs are closely confined at some point during their lives. According to the book Animal Factories by Jim Mason and Peter Singer, pork producers lose $187 million annually to chronic diseases such as dysentery, cholera, trichinosis and other ailments fostered by factory farming. Drugs are used to reduce stress levels in animals crowded together unnaturally, although 20 percent of the chickens die of stress or disease anyway.

One result of these conditions is a high rate of meat contamination. Up to 60 percent of chickens sold in supermarkets are infected with Salmonella entenidis, which can pass to humans if the meat is not heated to a high enough temperature. Another pathogen, Campylobacter, can also spread from chickens to human beings with deadly results.

In 1997, more than 25 million pounds of hamburger were found to be contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7, which is spread by fecal matter. The bacteria are a particular problem in hamburger, because the grinding process spreads it throughout the meat.

According to the British group Vegfam, a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn and only two producing cattle. Britain -- with 56 million people -- could support a population of 250 million on an all-vegetable diet.

From here and here

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