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plenty of food to feed the world


danielost

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Part of my job is working with fresh fruit and hot cooked foods.

It never fails to amaze/disgust me at just how much of it is thrown away.

By the same token much of the food tossed is filthy (read highly processed meat products) and openly unhealthy for humans to consume, and yet, people still shovel that garbage straight into themselves.

 

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They talk like wanting perfection is a bad thing.   

I think we all pick the best fruit when we buy it from a store.    Who wouldn't?    It's different if the "ugly" fruit is discounted I suppose.

I don't know a good way to fix this besides offering it at a discounted price.   Still, both the farmer and the store must make a profit.  So that may not even be an option.   I always assumed the blemished fruit went to producers of other products.  

I was also surprised they mentioned in a negative manner about the farmer who fed much of his watermelon crop to his cattle.   That seems like a good thing.   Maybe a company could start taking these inferior fruits and veggies and make a nutritious animal  feed.

I'm always amazed at the amount of waste there is at every restaurant.  Besides all the food left on the plates, there is the waste from the kitchen.   I always take some home and throw it to the chickens.   They eat almost anything.  

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lets ship the ugle food to those who need it.  the farmer and store still get their profit.

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3 minutes ago, danielost said:

lets ship the ugle food to those who need it.  the farmer and store still get their profit.

How would that work?

I suppose if we are giving "relief" funds to a country in need, we could reroute those funds to pay for transportation to that country.   2 birds, 1 stone. 

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1 hour ago, danielost said:

lets ship the ugle food to those who need it.  the farmer and store still get their profit.

And who to pay for the logistic?

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yea there is plenty, yet some on continents people are dying from hunger,  it has little to do with food availability or logistics, it is all about control. it is a lot easier to  control people when you control food supply. 

if today entire Africa is filled with food,  warlords would be taking it away. and kill anyone who resists. as it has already happened.

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3 hours ago, toast said:

And who to pay for the logistic?

the un.

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2 minutes ago, danielost said:

the un.

Sure.

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it is about time the un started earning its keep.

 

from the op link

 

“If you and I reduced fresh produce waste by 50% like [the US agriculture secretary] Vilsack wants us to do, then supermarkets would go from [a] 1.5% profit margin to 0.7%,” he said. “And if we were to lose 50% of consumer waste, then we would lose about $250bn in economic activity that would go away.”

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14 hours ago, toast said:

And who to pay for the logistic?

The US of A sir. If we can afford to aid terrorists in Syria and Libya, frivolously invade non threatening nations and maintain some 800 military bases in 70 something nations around the globe surely we can afford to wrangle the logistics of feeding those who are starving. Its simply a matter of us as a nation getting our priorities straight. 

Dont get me wrong , national defense is a priority, but what this nation's war machine is doing is well beyond defense at this point and has been for a generation. 

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53 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

The US of A sir. If we can afford to aid terrorists in Syria and Libya, frivolously invade non threatening nations and maintain some 800 military bases in 70 something nations around the globe surely we can afford to wrangle the logistics of feeding those who are starving. Its simply a matter of us as a nation getting our priorities straight. 

Dont get me wrong , national defense is a priority, but what this nation's war machine is doing is well beyond defense at this point and has been for a generation. 

how many dictators are going to deny the usa passing out food.

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I don't think the USA should fund any of it unless it is moving existing aid funds to do it.

Lots of cost built in.  

All need paid:

Farmers

Truckers

Dispatchers

Distribution centers

Dock workers

Ship crew

Cost of the ship and fuel

Much more also.

 

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4 hours ago, Farmer77 said:

The US of A sir. If we can afford to aid terrorists in Syria and Libya, frivolously invade non threatening nations and maintain some 800 military bases in 70 something nations around the globe surely we can afford to wrangle the logistics of feeding those who are starving. Its simply a matter of us as a nation getting our priorities straight. 

Dont get me wrong , national defense is a priority, but what this nation's war machine is doing is well beyond defense at this point and has been for a generation. 

To send over food can solve the situation for a few and for a very short period of time but will not change the real cause.

Quote

Most hungry people are the rural poor living in developing countries – villages in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Link

So if we add North Korea and Syria here it is obvious that hunger at all these places isnt caused by the absence of fertile soil but by rotten governments, wars (initiated by rotten governments) and by the financial interests of the blue chips of the global food industry, e.g. the palm oil industry. Food donations for Africa were made already when I was a kid, and thats decades ago, but the situation is the same as decades ago and nothing has changed, nothing. I do not say that we should stop food donation actions, but donations will not change the local situations on the long so the only option is better global politics and pressure on these hunger countries governments.

Edited by toast
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About hunger in Africa, the population most at risk of hunger often live in remote villages. When the crops fail there is simply no road to deliver the goods. The worst case is probably Ethiopia South East. If you take a look at google map, you'll see the border with Somalia is a dashed line, meaning Ethiopia's government isn't investing in infrastructure because it doesn't know if it will keep the region in the long run. Also the local population is Somalian, so the less population growth there is, the less political weight these potential nation traitors will have.

Beside the political games, agriculture practices in Africa have some major room for improvement to say the least. That's the part we should help improve.

Meanwhile, in Western World, there are plenty of local poors who don't get enough to eat. Maybe we should start there...

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How can we feed the world, when we can't even get enough interest in a simple thread about feeding the world.

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The reason for hunger in a lot of places like Africa is corrupt government, wars and drought.  I don't know what you could do about that.  In a few places its overpopulation.  Their country just can't feed the amount of people it has yet people keep having large families.

You can't ship fresh vegetables to Africa.  They would have to be canned, frozen or something which would make the venture even more expensive.  They might manage to give some of it to the poor or homeless, maybe even schools.

What's wrong with feeding the vegies to your livestock, they have to eat something.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Ashotep said:

The reason for hunger in a lot of places like Africa is corrupt government, wars and drought.  I don't know what you could do about that.  In a few places its overpopulation.  Their country just can't feed the amount of people it has yet people keep having large families.

You can't ship fresh vegetables to Africa.  They would have to be canned, frozen or something which would make the venture even more expensive.  They might manage to give some of it to the poor or homeless, maybe even schools.

What's wrong with feeding the vegies to your livestock, they have to eat something.

 

 

what about the vegis that end up in landfills.

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supermarkets here the states will mix bleach with produce they throw away, to keep people from taking it out of the dumpsters.  not saying all do but you just can't take the chance.

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3 hours ago, danielost said:

what about the vegis that end up in landfills.

I was really surprised to find out how much produce goes to landfills.   I thought at least it was composted.

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On 8/19/2016 at 2:14 AM, danielost said:

what about the vegis that end up in landfills.

What about it?  I don't know about you but I'm not eating vegies that are molded.

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22 minutes ago, Ashotep said:

What about it?  I don't know about you but I'm not eating vegies that are molded.

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.

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31 minutes ago, 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.

Actually, food product manufacturers can be the most perfect demanding of all. Product specs have to be consistent, so the produce used has to be consistent.

An example in tomatoes... A manufacturer makes tomato products like whole peeled, diced, sauce. Every tomato has to be of similar size and shape for processing equipment to peel, dice, and pack correct portions. Blemishes like skin imperfections are sometimes tolerated to a certain extent if it does not interfere with quality or processing. But too much blemish can cause a problem with a whole skin slipping off, or an actual break on the skin could mean that bad stuff had the chance to get in there, or bruising could mean potential early rotting within the bruised flesh.

And that's were grading comes in. A farmer would sort the tomatoes, and pack off the ones for manufacturer specs to them. And pack off other grades for consumers. And leave a lot in the field as unusable because it does not fit grading standards. Or supply second run produce users. There is indeed market for second run produce too. An example is watermelons. There are juice producers that get second run watermelons extra cheap since they aren't eligible for the "perfect" markets. They juice the watermelons up, and sell it for 7 bucks for a 10 oz bottle at some popular upscale market stores.

But an extraordinary amount is still wasted unnecessarily.

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