Food waste reduction could help feed world's starving

One third of all food produced is wasted, the UN estimates

"If food was as expensive as a Ferrari, we would polish it and look after it."

Instead, we waste staggering amounts.

So says Professor Per Pinstrup-Andersen, head of an independent panel of experts advising the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization on how to tackle the problem.

Some 40% of all the food produced in the United States is never eaten. In Europe, we throw away 100 million tonnes of food every year.

And yet there are one billion starving people in the world.

The FAO's best guess is that one third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted before it is eaten.

Food waste

33%

of all food is wasted
$750bn

cost of waste food

• 28% of farmland grows food that will be thrown away
• 6-10% of greenhouse gases come from waste food
• 39% of household food waste is fruit and vegetables

Source: UN/FAO

SPL

The latest report from the expert panel of the UN Committee on World Food Security concludes that food waste happens for many different reasons in different parts of the world and therefore the solutions have to be local.

Take Chris Pawelski, a fourth generation onion farmer from the US. Mr Pawelski has spent months growing onions in the rich, black soil of Orange County, New York, but the supermarkets he sells to will only accept onions of certain size and look.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

From BBC-Busines

China 'admits' trading in tiger skins

China has for the first time admitted in public that it permits trade in skins from captive tigers, according to participants and officials at a meeting of an international convention to protect endangered species.

Tagging is one of many measures that have been introduced to help protect tigers in the wild from the illegal trade in their body parts

They said the Chinese authorities had never before reported this to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).

However, during the convention's standing committee meeting in Geneva, China reportedly said that it still banned tiger bones.

It is estimated that about 1,600 tigers - in captivity and in the wild - have been traded globally since 2000!

"A Chinese delegate said, 'we don't ban trade in tiger skins but we do ban trade in tiger bones,'" a participant in the meeting said.

Cites secretariat sources confirmed that a member of the Chinese delegation had said this.

Chinese officials have not responded to a BBC request for comment.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 tigers are believed to be in captivity in China. Wildlife conservation organisations have long demanded an end to the trade in skins.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE from BBC News