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plenty of food to feed the world


danielost

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1 hour ago, aquatus1 said:

The only reason baby carrots exist is because a farmer didn't want to throw away his ugly carrots.

True that. Those bags of already peeled baby carrots are second run of farmers ugly carrots... in particular, the ones too skinny to pass grading for the bigger pound packages whole.

And also, there's a bit behind that. Fingerling carrots are actual real carrots, and often touted in farmers markets and on the plates of high buck restaurants. Regular sized carrot producers took advantage of that and produced "baby carrots"- letting folks assume they are really getting pre-peeled fingerlings. And you bet, a lot of people think baby carrots are really baby or fingerling carrots instead of fully mature big carrots that are cut up and tumbled to appear like whole little peeled carrots .

 

Edited by rashore
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On 8/20/2016 at 8:06 AM, Myles said:

To be fair, the article mentioned that much of the produce that goes to the landfills are not rotten, just are not cosmetically not perfect.

I had always assumed this kind of stuff went to places to be used in other products.

If they aren't rotten they should donate them if they can.  There was a time the poor was given the farm surplus, it was called commodities, don't know if they still do it but if they do that would be a good place to send it.  Other than that I don't know what you could do about this.  If you are paying top dollar for produce you aren't going to buy the funky looking one.

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I myself prefer to buy those unpopular looking and smaller organic veggies from "farmer markets" instead of those perfect looking veggies which are more likely to have been over sprayed with way too much chemicals. Most of the USA products grown are GMOwed to the max anyway. I trust the little guy who grows with his green thumb up.

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18 hours ago, Ashotep said:

If they aren't rotten they should donate them if they can.  There was a time the poor was given the farm surplus, it was called commodities, don't know if they still do it but if they do that would be a good place to send it.  Other than that I don't know what you could do about this.  If you are paying top dollar for produce you aren't going to buy the funky looking one.

Yep, government food surplus was one of the earliest forms of food welfare/food stamps. At one time, agricultural overproduction would be bought by the gov- and distributed to the needy. Then came in food stamps which could be purchased cheap to put to those overstocks. Then commercial food producers wanted in on that, and slowly agricultural overstock that was fairly wholesome and decent got edged out, and commercial products purchased with stamps came into the fore. 
Perhaps a review of, and to an extent a return to government food surplus programs wouldn't be a bad idea.

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On 8/22/2016 at 1:56 PM, rashore said:

Yep, government food surplus was one of the earliest forms of food welfare/food stamps. At one time, agricultural overproduction would be bought by the gov- and distributed to the needy. Then came in food stamps which could be purchased cheap to put to those overstocks. Then commercial food producers wanted in on that, and slowly agricultural overstock that was fairly wholesome and decent got edged out, and commercial products purchased with stamps came into the fore. 
Perhaps a review of, and to an extent a return to government food surplus programs wouldn't be a bad idea.

I've been looking into commodities to see if they are even giving them out anymore and it seems they are mostly only given to people 60+ and to Indian tribal organizations.  They stopped giving them to women and children unless they were getting them prior to 2014. 

Someone not long ago told me that if food stamps were cut out many grocery stores would go out of business.  So big business has a stake in not giving out commodities. 

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/csfp/Revised-Maximum-Monthly-Distribution-Rates.pdf

http://www.fns.usda.gov/csfp/commodity-supplemental-food-program-csfp

 

 

 

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WHEN EVER THE HUNGRY COME UP IN THE RELIGION SECTIONS.  GOD GETS THE BLAME.  which is why I started this thread.  but, it seems few people care.  even on here there are too few who care.

Edited by danielost
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53 minutes ago, danielost said:

WHEN EVER THE HUNGRY COME UP IN THE RELIGION SECTIONS.  GOD GETS THE BLAME.  which is why I started this thread.  but, it seems few people care.  even on here there are too few who care.

Well.. in religion sections when food gets brought up, it's usually in relation to God. That's kind of the nature of religious discussions, to discuss topics in relation to God and other deities.

But you didn't post this in the religion sections with any sort of religious reference. You posted it under a news, politics, and current affairs with clear human factor and connection only. So we were only discussing that until you brought up "don't blame God" completely out of context since no one had said or inferred anything about God till that point.

Since this topic is going along fine just based on human interaction, lets leave religion to the religion sections please.

 

And to that note... Food waste is indeed a problem in wealthier countries. That is sort of a separate problem from poorer nations that don't have their own infrastructure to supply themselves, and often, even be able to transport goods very well in general. Between the two we have a terrible food circulation and utilization problem.

To address the food waste problem. Here's an interesting company that has been around since 2001 as a data-driven guide for businesses, government, funders, and nonprofits to collectively reduce food waste at scale. http://www.refed.com/?sort=economic-value-per-ton

They have a great PDF that shortly details the problem- and deeply discusses how to reduce waste in the more commercial sector: https://www.refed.com/downloads/ReFED_Report_2016.pdf

 

 
 
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  • 4 weeks later...

they are running an ad in it says 40% of food is wasted.  they are talking about the food that you and I buy.  so again there is plenty of food grown to feed the world.  if we need the UN they need to feed the world.

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then WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING.  LIKE BUILD ROADS WHERE NEEDED OR USE THE NEW TRUCK THAT LAYS A ROAD AS IT DRIVES.  sorry forgot I had caps on.

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What needs to be done is someone has to pony up the money.  If you got that, everything else can be taken care of.  If you don't, then you need to come up with some other solution.

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if everyone donated 1 dollar that would be over 300 million dollars.  that could be a good start.  but, as stated you can't send it to countries they would spend it on something else.

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300 mil is a drop in the bucket Daniel. The U.S. has donated many billions of dollars- and has for decades. This is for food itself, equipment and education in agriculture, and infrastructure to transport the food. And we still spend billions every year- that is indeed earmarked for agriculture projects and food. And there are a lot of Americans that are getting irritated about how much foreign aid we shell out, considering our problems at home- most folks would object to shelling out even more, even if it's for food. Why? Because we have hunger problems here at home that while it's being addressed, it does not seem to be getting taken care of.

That does not even include all the services you see on TV "for just a dollar a day" to feed the children. People donate millions a year to those charities. And that's part of the problem of hoping everyone will give a dollar. Some folks have been seeing ads for that for over 30 years- and the same kinds of ads run now, it's just asking for more money. So I think a lot of people are like screw that to those scamming charities, they obviously haven't done much in over 30 years. And then there's all the scandals and scams that come out with charities- like huge salaries or major amount of the donations going to other functions rather than what it's supposed to be. A lot of people are tired of finding out that their charity has spent most of that food dollar on other stuff- and there's always a new scandal or scam coming out.

It's not just a matter of someone ponying up either- philanthropists have been doing that too. And at least their dollars get more directly applied. But all those dollars end up being just a drop in the bucket too. We hear great stories about some famous or rich person going into a place and building a village, or setting up their food, or building the schools. And it never seems like enough.

 

This whole food game is about dollars, no doubt about that. But it's far more complex than just everyone donate a dollar and hope for the best.

 

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