Reducing Food Waste in the Event of An Erupting Volcano and Other Farming Hazards

[borderjumpers]

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/reducing-food-waste-in-the-event-of-an-erupting-volcano-and-other-farming-hazards/">Nourishing the Planet.


As Iceland’s erupting volcano strands thousands of air travelers across Europe and worldwide, a less publicized but arguably more costly catastrophe is mounting 15,000 miles away: piles of http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/world/africa/20kenya.html">gourmet produce and cut flowers, some of Kenya’s chief exports, are rotting in limbo. Meant to be shipped to upscale grocery stores throughout Europe, lilies, roses, carnations, carrots, onions, baby sweet corn, and sugar snap peas are going bad in heaps, on the vine, and in the ground because airport warehouses are already full and there’s no local market for the expensive produce in a country where half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

As food prices continue to rise worldwide, reducing food waste will be a critical element in alleviating hunger and poverty worldwide. Already, Nourishing the Planet has highlighted the many ways that growing indigenous vegetables for local markets and improving storage techniques can help to both reduce food waste and improve access to food, in Kenya and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

To read more about food waste and ways it can be prevented, see: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/innovation-of-the-week-reducing-food-waste/">Reducing Food Waste, http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/vertical-farms-finding-creative-ways-to-grow-food-in-kibera/">Finding Creative Ways to Grow Food in Kibera, http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/farming-on-the-urban-fringe/">Farming on the Urban Fringe, and http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/innovation-of-the-week-investing-in-better-food-storage-in-africa/">Investing in Better Food Storage in Africa. Also, stay tuned for an entire chapter on the subject, written by http://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/">Tristram Stuart, in State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.

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[Hestia]

1. There have been reports of starving in Zimbabwe, why not ship the food there? It beats giving it to

the beef industry for fodder.

[borderjumpers]

3. Hestia

thanks for your comment -- your absolutely right

[Caretha]

5. Wouldn't that be fabulous

Something that is happening here right now in the US, and not talked about, is the strawberry growers in FL disseminating their crops because prices are to low. They are so low & the market is so saturated in the US that for the 3rd week in a row I can afford to buy them.

And are they beautiful! They are so gorgeous and have been a part of my raw food diet that for 3 weeks I'm almost sick of them. But they are so abundant & cheap right now, I'm thinking of all sorts of ways to eat them up.

What is wrong with the way we disperse food is ungodly. All I can say is go read Daniel Quinn.

[nyc 4 Biden]

2. another downside of globalization...

besides the "race to the bottom" exploitation of under developed nations, is that we are more dependent on a complex and easily interrupted delivery infrastructure to provide us with necessities ie food.

[borderjumpers]

4. thanks nyc 4 Biden

totally agree with you