Food
waste threatens the environment
By Odimegwu
Onwumere
Almost
everybody is crying of hunger in this country in the recent times. Hardly is
anyone thinking about the quantity of food that is being wasted everyday. This
practice is becoming a threat to the environment. The waste of food is being ample,
suggest authorities.
But the
waste is not circumstanced by only the individuals. Food waste transpires in
the companies that process, produce and retail food. In 2011 alone, there is an
account, which bemoans that 1.3 billion tonnes of foods are wasted annually. In
the global food production index, this loss is one third of food that is
produced annually.
In a
description of June 2013 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), global
food wastage hits $1trn per annum. The revelation from this year’s World
Environment Day with the theme, ‘Think, Eat, Save, Reduce your Foodprints’, is
an eye-opener to the danger food waste posits on the environment.
Lamentation:
There
are expressions-of-grief by the establishments that the amount of food that is
being wasted, is capable of feeding as many millions of people as possible
everyday; but most especially, those who drink tears for tea and ashes for
bread before they go to bed. The Executive Director of Environment Rights
Action (ERA), Dr. Godwin Ojo does not hide his voice to this fact. Purportedly,
he says that as a result of food waste, majority of the citizens are endangered
by the menace of lack-of-food and, the sphere is being pressurized by climate revolution.
Upon
that this year’s World Environment Day theme was mutually elected by the United
Nations Environment Programme, UNEP and the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation, Ojo says that the dangers the environment is facing cannot be overemphasized,
with their in-fact unyielding energy catastrophes. The Lagos State governor
Babatunde Fashola cries that food waste contributes to the global warming. In
his wisdom, Fashola supposedly says: Food wastage leads to the squandering of
resources, such as fertilisers, pesticides and fuel, used for transportation.
In a UNEP
story: Our growing population puts so much pressure on the environment that
nowadays the natural resources are no longer as abundant as they used to be.
How we use and dispose of non-renewable resources is radically altering our
ecosystems and even the planet’s renewable resources (such as water, timber or
fish) are rapidly being exhausted. We have now reached a tipping point where
the quality of air and water needs to be improved, the level of production
needs to be balanced and the amount of waste generated needs to be reduced.
Danger:
Fashola
says that the volume of food going into landfill sites is enormous and this
creates methane, which is one of the most detrimental donors to climate change.
The governor has fears following the statistics of the Food and Agriculture
Organisation, an agency of the United Nations (UN), which demonstrates that 1.3
billion tonnes of food is wasted annually around the globe. Conversely, he
appends that if more than 20,000 children below the age of five die daily from
hunger, the country’s population is threatened and this is environmentally bad,
where statistics show that one out of every seven people in the world,
including Nigeria, go to bed hungry. The governor nonetheless discards the report,
describing it as “unacceptable, unfair and harsh on posterity”. His unacceptability is hinged on the fact that
producing companies, retailers and consumers waste food that was very much
healthy for human consummation. The governor expresses that unless Nigerians
make informed choices in buying and expenditure, food waste may become a
phenomenon that would be farfetched to stop.
There
are magnitudes of fear concerning the threat of food waste to the environment.
This informed the estimation of the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadiza
Ibrahim Mailafia, that this year's theme: 'Think. Eat. Save. Reduce your Food
print', is the chief purpose to underline the enormity of food desecration
worldwide and the related environmental, humanitarian and economic connotations.
This she says that the nuances are putting agriculture and food security at
risk, thus effecting ruthless corollaries on defenceless and underprivileged
agriculturally-reliant people in the civilization.
Cause:
The
Minister says that the 2012 floods in Nigeria wreaked havoc on several states
of the federation, adversely affecting human lives, property, livelihoods,
settlements, fresh water/coastal water resources, fisheries, forest, biodiversity,
agricultural farmlands, food supplies, health/sanitation and human migrations,
placing a huge challenge to food supply and food security across the nation.
The
authorities say that people do not take to knowledge their consummation of
food, which is particularly what this year’s World Environment Day theme
intends to exact. Part of negative environmental impacts is caused by food
waste. It is also a colossal drain on natural resources. People just throw away
food, not minding the negative impact on the environment. Apart from the
companies that produce, process and retail food assumed to be in the gargantuan
habit of wasting food, a testimony by professionals says the contrary. It says
that food left over on plate and pots not used, expired-processed food, fruits
and vegetables not eaten and sundry, which later are thrown into the trashcan,
constitute to environmental degradation. And from a little quantity of food
waste thrown out a day, multiplies in a week, month and year.
The unpardonable
road networks have been fingered as one of the causes of food waste as it
affects the easy transportation of food from areas where there is much food to
areas where there is shortage. There has been an outcry that not investing on
a-post harvest food preservation is detrimental. And the government’s incessant
clutching on using the farmlands of the local farmers that feed over 60% of the
population is awful.
Innovation:
Specialists
say that inadequate storage of food before purchase should be drastically
checkmated to curtail the environmental impact of waste food. An account says
that immensity of wasted food, which ends up in landfills, and decomposing food
in landfills, which produces methane gas (known as one of the greenhouse gases
that contribute to global warming), should be diminished. Creating awareness of
the significance in the ease of recycling should be encouraged.
Consultants
say that to save the environment there should be discouragement of food waste, because
it leads to wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides, more
fuel used for transportation, and more rotting food. The citizens should not be
imitating end-users in rich countries, which waste almost as much food (222
million tonnes) as the total grid food assembly of sub-Saharan Africa (230
million tonnes). There should be enhancement in financial, administrative and
practical constrictions in harvesting techniques as well as storage – and
nipping amenities – to avert food waste and losses, which happen chiefly at
early steps of the food value procession.
In
level of coordination, experts suggest that farmer-buyer agreements can be
helpful. Among industries, retailers and consumers raising awareness is
expedient in finding the optimum ways to waste food curtailing. Also, the country
should spare itself of the financial waste, like the United States, which her
30% of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each
year. Again, the United Kingdom households dissipate a sketchy 6.7 million
tonnes of food every year, around one third of the 21.7 million tonnes procured.
The powers-that-be
are saying that the application of “Sustainable consumption” is important, as
it is all about ‘doing more and better with less.’ They say that this would
reduce resource use, degradation and pollution, while increasing the quality of
life for all. A system that will encourage reduction of waste and save cost
should moreover be supported.
Ojo seemingly
explains that the trend fuelled by food wastages resulting from lack of access
to food supply due to poor road infrastructure and the capitalist greed of
agribusiness men has to be readdressed. Fashola, according-to-the-grapevine,
calls on retailers, hospitality industry and restaurant operators to remodel
product packages to avoid waste and directed religious bodies, the government
and non-governmental organisations, schools and institutions of higher learning
to move up the campaign against wastage of food, because the loss of property
and livelihood is one that citizens must upsettingly guide against to ease
global hotness.
It’s
possible that the country would get it right if it pays attention to the advise
by the UN Resident Representative in Nigeria, Mr. Dauda Toure, which invariably
suggests that this year's theme is an anti-food waste and food loss campaign;
everyone is being encouraged to pay attention to the consumption patterns and
take urgent steps to reduce their foodprint. The Minister of Environment hence
articulates that given the imbalances in lifestyles, standards of living,
economic status and the enormous environmental challenges facing our people,
there is the need for us to be more aware of the environmental impacts and
economic consequences of the food choices we make to enable us make informed
decisions on food management.
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