SAY NO TO FOOD WASTAGE

Food waste or food loss as defined by Wikipedia is the food that is discarded or lost or uneaten. According to the United Nations, if the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25% there would be enough food to feed everyone on the planet.

The causes of food waste or loss are numerous, and occur at the stages of production, processing, retailing and consumption. Food wastes are commonly generated in homes, institutions (e.g. boarding schools/schools, prisons, sport camps, religious camps, and industries e.t.c)

Food wastes could be regarded as pure streams of waste and they constitute a major burden to the environment such as odour emanation, vermin attraction, toxic gas emission and groundwater contamination. It has high energy content and it seems ideal to achieve dual benefits of energy production and waste stabilization.

Each year, 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted, including about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition.

In 2013, The UNEP?s theme of the World Environment Day was ?Think, Eat, Save, Reduce your Foodprints,? and it says ?each year an estimated one third of all food produced ends up spoiling in the bins of consumers, retailers, farmers and transporters. Together, these spoilt food total 1.3 billion tonnes and worth an estimated $1 trillion every year.?

According to available statistics, over 1.2 billion people go to bed hungry everyday and another half of that figure die of starvation and malnutrition globally.

In a developing nation like Nigeria, Food wastage occurs on a daily basis in different forms and dimensions, while several thousands of Nigerians go to bed hungry in the midst of plenty.  The food wastage situation could be categorized into two namely wastage of raw or unprocessed foodstuff and wastage of cooked or processed food.  Food loss manifest sadly from the production, storage, processing and distribution stages in the food value chain.

The south West, South East and South South people of Nigeria are fond of all manners of social events: marriages, birthdays, house warming ceremonies, coronation ceremonies, child naming and dedication events and are noted for cooking large amount of different varieties of food, and in most cases, are often wasted. This also amounts to huge food loss almost throughout the year.

Conclusively, the ripple effect of food wastage amounts to wastage of precious life resources like time, money, water, land and energy spent in producing the food. All hands should be on deck to reduce wastage of food to the barest minimum, to ensure food security and Sustainability.

References:

http://climatechange.gov.ng/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food

http://www.opinionnigeria.com/between-waste-and-nigerian-work-ethics-by-olusegun-adeniyi/#sthash.Rszq34ki.dpbs

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/06/global-food-wastage-hits-1trn-annually-unep/

http://dailyindependentnig.com/

http://www.thinkeatsave.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167