The Rural Voice, 2005-04, Page 12Jeffrey Carter
Food's wasted because it isn't valued
Jeffrey
Carter is a
freelance
journalist
based in
Dresden,
Ontario.
Timothy Jones, an anthropologist
at the University of Arizona, has
found that close to the half food
produced in United States is wasted.
One would suspect that, had Jones
conducted his study in Canada, the
findings would be similar.
Jones, to his credit, puts his results
in perspective. His findings show
that 40 to 50 per cent of food that's
"ready for harvest" — is never eaten.
It's an important point. Jones has
calculated all the losses, including
harvest losses, losses during
transportation and storage, losses at
the processing and distribution level,
losses at the retail/restaurant level,
and those losses that occur after food
in the hands of the people intending
to eat it.
Naturally, there are interest groups
looking to massage Jones' findings
to suit their particular political slant.
The Minnesota-based Organic
Consumers Association, for instance,
issued a news release entitled,
"Industrial Agriculture Wastes 50 per
cent of Food."
To point the finger at one aspect
of the food chain is a bit unfair. As
Jones points out, the average U.S.
household wastes 14 per cent of their
food purchases — worth about $43
billion annually.
It should also be noted that some
food will inevitably be wasted — no
matter what type of food system
happens to be in place. Any home
gardener knows that not every green
bean is picked and not every potato is
dug.
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8 THE RURAL VOICE
The organic association does have
a valid point, however. There is
built-in inefficiency with today's
food system.
For instance, Jones likens fruit and
vegetable growers to "river boat
gamblers," according to an article on
the University of Arizona website.
"They will roam their fields while
on the cell phones to the commodity
market in Chicago, play the odds and
even dance a jig or flip a coin if they
think it will help them make a
financial killing. A bad bet often
means an entire crop is left in the
field to be plowed under."
Here in Ontario, commercially -
produced vegetables are wasted on a
regular basis. Last fall, for instance,
at least one of the major tomato
processors in the province left a
significant percentage of tomatoes in
the field. The quality was still
acceptable. It was simply a marketing
decision. Tonnage requirements had
already been filled.
There are, of course, repercussions
to all this food wastage. Fossil
fuels and chemicals were essentially
wasted in its production, topsoil was
lost, and landfill space was taken up
by something that, at the very least,
should have been composted.
Perhaps an even greater concern is
the attitude many North Americans
seem to hold for food. 1 listened in
dismay, for instance, when a caller to
CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup
program suggested that if a Canadian
farmer is unable to make a living
from their farming operation, that
farmer should simply just walk away.
Food has been cheapened, and so
have the people who produce it.
Most North Americans no longer
understand the true value of food. It's
certainly not reflected in the way it's
priced.
A bushel of corn, for instance, has
been selling around $2.30. Yet to a
starving man a bushel of corn is life
for a month.
If North Americans hope to cut
into food wastage, food must be
properly valued. One can only hope
that it will not require widespread
hunger to make it happen.0