A sub-article that I
recently read on the November 2014 edition of the National Geographic Magazine took
me by surprise. A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
indicated that 21% of food at the consumer level went uneaten in 2010. In other
words, this food is dumped to the garbage can. The number may seem less, but
here is another set of comparisons: A year’s food loss accounts for a loss of
2.5% of U.S. energy consumption, over 25% of all fresh water used for
agriculture in the U.S., 300 million barrels of oil, and $115 billion. That’s HUGE!
The USDA defines food
loss as the “loss of edible food, postharvest, that is available for human
consumption but is not consumed.” This definition might work better for those
nations that are capable of producing food that is way more enough to feed
their population, and even provide the entire world with the much-needed food
supply. Having enough food on your plate, and leaving the rest for the dumping
can, that’s kind of awry!
This is the case of the
developed world. On the other side of the coin, the scenario is quite the
opposite for the “developing” one. In this part of the world, dumping food is a
luxury people cannot afford. Places where food is at scarce (especially those
which became war zones or drought-prone), are battlefields where people became
monsters to put their hands of what appears to be a “pearl in the desert.” Even
for those who can afford to put bread on their tables, the primal issue is
having something to eat, not ‘how much.’
Ironically, the
“developing” world is a place that covers a large sum of cultivated land, home
to various edible substances, and where the majority of the population is
employed in the agricultural sector. However, it is also a playground for
hunger, malnutrition, drought and famine. Of course, an ensemble of reasons can
be associated with these problems. But the thing is, the world is unfair when
it comes to wealth distribution.
Why do people waste
food? Is it because they don’t know their limits while buying their groceries?
Or is it just habitual for them to stack their refrigerators with plenty of
food stuffs? I don’t get what the people of the west, who are highly private,
with families shrunk in size, think when they go to the supermarkets. The food
stocks a single family purchases for a week could feed around five to ten
families here in Ethiopia.
Don’t get me wrong
here. I’m not trying to compare the level of access to food between the two
worlds. I understand there are a number of reasons associated with this
phenomenon, and it’s a whole different issue not to be addressed by a
“passer-by blogger” like myself. The reason that I’m commenting on this issue
is the shocking disparity that our world is currently hosting is something of a
ringer for contemplation.
The tale of the two
dishes is an issue that calls for a wide range of discussions, and I may get
back to it in the future. As a last word, though, I would like to point out one
factor that, in my opinion, contributes to this unfair distribution of food throughout
the world- politics. Ideological differences between nations have deprived the
transfer of extra food to the less fortunate parts of the earth. When the worst
famine in Ethiopian history took its stall in 1985, the UK has produced a huge
surplus of wheat that was believed to feed the entire population of the East
African nation, but its government has decided to dump that extra wheat to the
sea. Prime Minister Margaret Thacther was asked on why her administration came
to that decision, and she answered that it was because the UK “doesn’t want to
hand over any assistance to a country under the leadership of a communist
government.” What angers me upon reading such stories is that these people are
the same ones that categorize Africans “uncivilized,” since they are the ones
who failed to distinguish politics from humanity. Let’s hope such cruel and
misguided perceptions would not prevail ever again.
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