FOOD AND FOOD WASTE
ZARAGOZA, November 30, 2017
Dr. Yvonne Colomer
Director Triptolemos Foundation
The theme of the 8th edition of the program “green I love you green” organized by the Association of food industries of Aragon in Zaragoza and moderated by the journalist Pepa Fernandez of the program “today is not a day any” revolved around “The food and food waste. ” He counted among others with the participation of the Triptolemos Foundation for food development, which focused his intervention as follows:
We ask ourselves: Why is this topic so important?
The world population is expected to reach 9000 million people in 2050, we will have to have more food to feed this population. 75% of the planet is water (oceans, seas, rivers …) and 25% land, but only 3.9% is arable. Hence the need we have to optimize resources.
A very important and sometimes little analyzed fact is that 60% of the world population in 2050 will be in urban areas. This data conditions the supply of food (availability, distribution, packaging …) and consumption (habits, available times of preparation …). The typology of consumption in rural or urban areas is different.
Agriculture consumes 60% of the water available on land and the agri-food sector accounts for 30% of the world’s energy consumption.
In addition, we need about 3000 liters of water to produce 1kg of rice, 1300 liters 1kg of wheat, about 15,000 liters to produce 1kg of beef, 140litres of water to produce a cup of coffee or 1 manzana 70 liters of water.
The resources we have are limited and the demand increases. We have to produce more with less. We can not give up the help offered by science and technology.
FAO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, distinguishes between the concept of losses (reduction of edible foods in the stages of production, post-harvest and processing of the food chain, technical causes) and the concept of waste or waste (rather due to issues of citizen behavior, culture, habits, disuse of edible foods at the retail and consumer level).
Thus waste is associated with final consumption (restoration, homes …).
The elimination of losses, waste of food and waste is essential to improve food availability.
The waste of food has negative environmental impacts (consumption of water, land, energy and other scarce natural resources used to produce food that nobody consumes). But also, the misuse of natural resources has repercussions on the alleviation of hunger and poverty, nutrition, income generation and economic growth.
More than a third of the food produced today is lost or wasted. The financial costs of food waste are very high.
The graph indicates that food waste (referred to consumption in the last link of the chain) is much higher in developed or rich countries (Europe, North America, Australia …).
We can deduce that the reduction of food waste if or if it implies changing the behavior and habits of the population in developed countries. Consumer behavior in developed countries is the key to reduce food losses.
There are many good practice manuals available, prepared either by national institutions or by international organizations, which make recommendations on the level of consumption at home or in restaurants or in companies to avoid both waste and loss of food in the chain of value.
We can think of more radical changes: decrease energy costs and the material to be recycled, increase the% of recycling, use the concept of km 0 (the transport cost expressed in Kcal or kjoules has to be equal to or lower than the food energy transported ), reusable containers, containers with other materials, increase product weight / weight ratio container, investigate more efficient recycling (since recycling itself has an energy cost, performance less than 100% and environmental cost), distribution in bulk with health guarantees (dramatically decreases container weight / product weight).
As an example:
We can imagine the complexities to face in a real example: the reactivation of the dehydration of dehydrated products with technology that goes from drying in the sun (100% ecological) to lyophilization. The result is a final product with less weight (a reduction of at least 80%) that does not need refrigeration, or freezing, also reducing the volume with which the package will be smaller. Therefore, promoting dehydration technology would mean savings in packaging, in energy, in volume of warehouses, in weight and volume to be transported … .. everything will come.
In any case, food waste is not only a problem in the supply chain, it is a challenge of the global food system that requires long-term strategic coordination that solves the real challenges of sustainability of the planet and at the same time availability of food, through a cooperation agreement of citizens, companies and managing bodies worldwide.
What can we do?
Always a positive and optimistic mood to face reality.
We are referring to a global challenge that requires a serious agreement that involves everyone in the system in a total readjustment of the value chain and consumer perceptions and attitudes.
Without it, the solution is not possible.
And meetings with already 8 editions of the “green that I love you green” invite optimism, because the actions continued at the bases of society tend to solve the problem.
Triptolemos Foundation is aware of the challenge of producing more with less to feed a growing population and in an environment of global sustainability. Among other developments, it has a UNESCO Chair “Science and innovation for sustainable development: food security and food production” and has recently published the book on “The global food system: globalization, sustainability, security and food culture” with the Thomson publishing house Reuters
