Food waste essay
Food waste refers to the reduction in both the quality and quantity of food that results from peoples’ actions and decisions. These people include food retailers, service providers, and food consumers. Food wastage is a global phenomenon. According to FAO (n.d), a third of all the food produced and intended for human consumption ends up going to waste. In the UK alone, the amount of food that goes to waste is approximately 10 million tons per year. A great deal of freshwater, land, and labor goes into the production of food. When such large amounts of food end up in piles of waste, a lot of resources are also lost. The loss not only brings about negative impacts on the economy but also food waste is associated with greenhouse gasses emissions. Taking the negative effects of food waste into consideration, there is a need to come up with innovative and effective ways of solving the global food wastage problem.
There are practical ways of solving the world food wastage problem. These ways include the adoption of practices that will help reduce the amount of food that goes to waste. The first place to start is at the source. In farms, during harvesting, transportation, packaging, and storage, approximately sixteen percent of food goes to waste. Such wastage can be reduced by altering agricultural subsidies from the government that encourage excessive food production. In the United States of America, the Food and Drug Administration passed the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2018, which now requires all food transportation trucks and fleets to provide records proving that they kept the food substances that they ferried in proper temperature during transit (The Washington Post, 2017).
Also, The Washington Post (2017) indicated that during the sale of the farm produce, customers’ preference for uniform vegetables also plays a significant role in the contribution of food waste. The reason behind this is because most farmers throw away what is undesirable to sell. Scholars recommend that finding outlets for such unconventional-looking farm produce would significantly reduce the amount of food waste. In India, for example, Rainbow Agri, an internet-based company solution, has made it possible for farmers to reduce the amount of unsold produce by linking them up directly with potential customers.