A farmer stacks ears of corn outside her house in Changzhi, in China's Ghangzhi province, in a picture taken in October 2009.REUTERS
When I was a child, my parents persuaded me to eat everything on my plate by reminding me that children in Africa were starving.
Guilt was an effective way to get me to eat my vegetables, but it was also a way for Mom and Dad to share how lucky I was to be able to eat.
That was how that generation of parents avoided food waste.
My parents grew up during World War II and suffered their own hardships, including the rationing of most foods.
Being moderate was part of his DNA.
And I grew up in the sixties, when the images of the Biafran war in Nigeria appeared on our television showing thousands of starving children.
Behind them, aid agencies raised funds to help.
A sixth of the food we eat at home is thrown away because it's expired, because we can't eat everything on the plate or because we don't like it
I think of my childhood meals because September 29th is International Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day.
Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either until a colleague shared some amazing stats from last year's report on it.
That document showed not only the amount of food that went from the plate to the trash, but also the amount that was wasted along the entire food supply chain.
An incredible one-third of food is lost on the way from harvest to retail and during consumption.
This is happening as 50 million people face famine and as war – this time in Ukraine – hits food supply chains again.
As an avid composter, I am well aware of the amount of food my own family wastes.
Every year we fill half a compost bin with food scraps.
However, each person wastes an average of 74 kilos of food a year at home.
A sixth of the food we eat at home is thrown away because it's expired, because we can't eat everything on the plate or because we don't like it.
If we add up this global waste, family by family, country by country, and take into account the huge food losses generated by the agriculture, transport and packaging sectors, the environmental impact is staggering.
Food loss and waste accounts for 8-10% of global greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to grow these products.
All over the world the seasons are getting messed up.
The drought is repeating itself in East Africa, where some 12 million people face starvation.
The floods, made worse by accelerating glacial melt, are creating super-floods like the one that has submerged a third of Pakistan, devastating farmland and leaving 33 million people destitute.
Food wastage is prevalent for two reasons.
Around the world, incomes have grown, making food relatively cheaper for billions of people.
Even meat, once a luxury, has become an everyday staple.
In the UK, between 1957 and 2017, the share of household spending spent on food was halved.
People's relationship with food has changed.
It's easy to buy, cook and throw away.
About 14% of the world's food is lost between harvest and retail
Food is also cheaper to produce.
Large tracts of land have been given over to agriculture: ancient forests have been cleared for meat farms and palm oil plantations;
hedgerows uprooted to create huge fields of wheat;
decimated mangroves for shrimp farms.
The sea has also been plundered by ships armed with kilometric nets.
Large-scale farming with genetically modified seeds, monocultures, massive mechanization of farm equipment, and the use of fertilizers and pesticides have made farming more “efficient,” but at great cost to the Earth.
This has also made the world overly dependent on places like Ukraine - the so-called breadbasket of the world - James East, World Vision's director of emergencies - for its grain supply.
But the effects of climate change, the repercussions of the conflict in Ukraine on energy and food prices, and the aftermath of Covid-19 on supply chains have shown how vulnerable the food supply system is.
The last few months of scarcity and rising food prices remind us of the value of what we consume.
Reducing food waste requires three things.
The first is a personal choice.
We can be more careful about how much we buy, turning down tempting three-for-two deals at the supermarket that simply lead us to throw things away.
We can reduce the consumption of snacks and better plan meals.
We can buy fresh, local and seasonal products, reducing the amount of fruit and vegetables that are transported across the world.
We can reduce processed foods that create so much food waste and mountains of plastic packaging.
Second, food farmers, growers, retailers, and shippers must take action to reduce waste.
The combined impact of food processing and packaging, transportation and food waste is pushing the food supply chain to the top of the list of global carbon emitters.
And yet, about 14% of the world's food is lost between harvest and retail.
Food waste, rotting in landfills, generates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with a heating power 84 times greater than that of carbon dioxide in 20 years.
Crop overproduction, transportation spoilage, food spillage, disposal of “ugly” or blemished products,
Lastly, governments need to track food waste and work with citizens, businesses and countries to reduce it.
Countries have promised to halve food waste by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
With eight years to go there is much to do.
All countries need to identify waste hotspots where improvement is needed.
Although it's tempting to use the same guilt technique my parents used at mealtimes with my own teenagers, I think dinnertime is also an opportunity to talk about food: where it comes from, how it gets to our table, and the environmental impact of that trip.
James East
is World Vision's director of emergencies.
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