Our goal is to be bearers of the vision that the wide-spread wasting of food and energy resources goes a long way to increasing the imbalance in income and resources, and that we should collectively strive to provide a healthy, robust environment for all the globe's population for many generations to come..>>
In a recent research report published in Science magazine (July 18 2014: pages 325-328) entitled "Leverage points for improving global food security and the environment" West and colleagues find that "... a relatively small set of places and actions could provide enough new calories to meet the basic needs for more than 3 billion people, address many environmental impacts with global consequences, and focus food waste reduction on the commodities with the greatest impact on food security."”>>
It is in the most ‘advanced’ and affluent societies where the largest quantities of food are wasted at the consumer end of the chain.>>
The potential to provide so much more food by simply eliminating losses, while simultaneously freeing up land, energy and water resources for other uses, is an opportunity that should not be ignored>>
An editorial in a recent Science magazine publication (1 August 2014: page 491) entitled "Zero-hunger" concludes that "Commercial farming tends to promote market-driven monoculture of food crops, in which prioritizing nutrient need is generally absent. >>
Approximately 7 percent of planted fields in the United States are typically not harvested at all each year! U.S. food waste represents 4 per cent of all US energy use and approximately a quarter of all water use.>>
Ecologically speaking, there is no ‘waste’ but a long chain of conversions of energy and matter from one state to another>>
The excessive waste is a complex issue, but partially due to a long-term national policies of ‘cheap food’ and subsidies, which results in it being grossly undervalued>>