Green Tech: Israeli Inventor Develops Way to Make Produce Last 10X Longer (hydrogen, buy)
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The famous engineer and futurist Buckminster Fuller, who invented the geodesic dome, said in many ways that we grow enough food to feed everyone in the world, if we could just get it to people to eat before it rots or gets spoiled by insects and rodents. In other words, he saw world hunger primarily as a logistical issue.
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In 1976, he reported that there was now enough resources on Earth to feed, clothe and house everyone at a higher standard of living than anyone in all recorded history has ever known.
When scientists and economists studied the issue of starvation and hunger, they found that in the area of food, Bucky was correct in his prediction. They found that sometime in the 1970s we had reached a point when there was enough food to feed everyone. The issue was not quantity but control, and politics was the overriding factor governing starvation and all that it entails.
There are two key approaches to solving this issue... speed up the distribution network, and slow down the process of food rot. Now an Israeli inventor claims to have cracked the code on making fruits and vegetables last up to 15X longer by washing them in a simple, safe, inexpensive solution of hydrogen peroxide and some natural food acids. The title of the article is a bit overblown, but the content is quite interesting...
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Could an Israeli-created innovation end world hunger?
Pimi Agro has figured out a natural way to extend the shelf life of produce by 1,500%, and prevent disease and fungus, too
Between a third and half of the food grown today never makes it to market. Produce of all kinds is “lost” to spoilage and disease, due mostly to transportation, storage, and other logistics issues. As a result, hundreds of millions of people still go hungry – but they don’t have to, thanks to an invention by Israel’s Pimi Agro. By applying a formula based on hydrogen peroxide — “with a few key additions,” said Nimrod Ben-Yehuda, CTO and co-founder of Pimi – fruits and vegetables remain fresh and viable for up to 10 weeks, significantly cutting losses due to rot and deterioration during the transportation process.
Technology like this, he believes, could make a major dent in world hunger. In the coming months, Pimi plans to introduce these inventions to the United Nations and other international institutions. “For places like India, China, and Africa, this is huge, especially because the transportation systems in those areas are slow and refrigeration is hard to come by,” said Ben-Yehuda. “You could walk from one end of India to the other over a period of 10 weeks, and the vegetables and fruit you carry will still be fresh for the entire time.”
It sounds like a fantastic claim, but one Pimi can prove through the extensive scientific studies the company has undertaken over the past decade – studies that were persuasive enough for agricultural and food authorities around the world, including in the US, UK, Germany, Australia, China, and many other countries, to approve Pimi’s all-natural, zero-chemical method of preserving produce.
We can move armies across the globe and sustain them for years, even longer than a decade. The logistics of moving materiel already exists and is proven. The food producing countries already have the means to put food where the paying demands exist.
The problem is money. There is no money in feeding people who can't pay for it.
You can get food to last for years, we can already do that. What good does it do anyone if the people who need to eat the food can't get it because of other problems? The transport and distribution of food really isn't a big problem compared to the reasons food isn't available to those that don't have any.
Hungry people think about eating and not much else. It becomes central to everything they do. When they have enough to eat, they start thinking about other things. Those other things are what gives pause to those that control food.
Go visit a country where many of the people are hungry or live day to day when it comes to food. They spend their entire days figuring out where to get food. Once they get food and are assured they will have more tomorrow, they start thinking about improving the rest of their existence. For certain interests, that is very scary.
When a lot less food gets spoiled, the cost goes down. Supply and demand... simple economics.
Unless there is someone on the consumer end that can afford to pay for that increased production it's not going to work the way you think. Their costs to produce the product are going to be static. If the product has longer shelf life with no one to buy it then the larger supply will drive down the value of the product and cut into the profits of the producer.
Wow, really? You seriously think this is some solution for hunger?
You realize the lack of global food availability is not the reason for hunger?
The reason is, as a poster stated, economics. Many people who are hungry simply do not have the economic means to buy food, having more of it will not solve that issue. The world could cure all hunger in Africa today if it wanted to, but it does not, no economic incentive to do so.
When a lot less food gets spoiled, the cost goes down. Supply and demand... simple economics.
No, they will simply not grow so much of it; that is supply and demand. Less food in demand, less will be supplied. As the poster above stated, there are numerous static costs involved in the food supply chain, and the food needs to sell at a level high enough to cover those costs.
No, they will simply not grow so much of it; that is supply and demand. Less food in demand, less will be supplied. As the poster above stated, there are numerous static costs involved in the food supply chain, and the food needs to sell at a level high enough to cover those costs.
I disagree. Nobody said a thing about less demand. Demand stays the same in the original market, spoiled goods are reduced, now there are excess goods available to expand into new markets, where the only direct costs are transportation, and those excess goods can be sold cheap, for additional income. We've seen many examples of that in all aspects of commerce.
I disagree. Nobody said a thing about less demand. Demand stays the same in the original market, spoiled goods are reduced, now there are excess goods available to expand into new markets, where the only direct costs are transportation, and those excess goods can be sold cheap, for additional income. We've seen many examples of that in all aspects of commerce.
Less spoiled food means less demand for more of it, that is a simple concept. If lettuce will stay on the shelf for ten times longer, that is less to spoil, thus less demand for the product.
I guess you still are obtuse to the fact that the lack of food availability is not the reason for hunger, yet you are still pushing this for some reason. In many countries, including the US, there are actually productive fields taken off-line in order not to over supply the market, thus crashing prices (as in they pay farmers not to grow food). This concept has been going on for a while, it is not new, and it works well.
They can only expand to new markets if those markets can afford the product. What you are assuming is that the farmers will just magically sell their product at a lower price because there will be more of it, which is 100% incorrect. There is plenty of excess food production capabilities now that are not utilized, what makes you think they would all of a sudden do it?
You seem to completely ignore the economics of hunger, you simply wish to prescribe a trivial reason as "there is not enough food", when even a simple online search will show you the dynamics of farming, the economics of farming and the supply chain, subsidies, etc.
I cannot believe that there are people out there who still think the lack of food available globally is the reason for hunger.
You seem to completely ignore the economics of hunger, you simply wish to prescribe a trivial reason as "there is not enough food", when even a simple online search will show you the dynamics of farming, the economics of farming and the supply chain, subsidies, etc.
You seem not to have even read my opening post, in which I reiterated Buckminster Fuller's very well known pronouncement that there is already enough food to feed everyone, but much of it is in the wrong places, and will rot or be spoiled before it can be eaten. (And I never said this would solve the global hunger problem. But it does fit the VERY Green principle of doing more with less.) Anything that help, helps. Obviously.
This development means that food can be transported further, without refrigeration, which means new and expanded markets for the growers.
Also, don't try to gauge global food markets by American agricultural policies. It will just mess with your head.
This development means that food can be transported further, without refrigeration, which means new and expanded markets for the growers.
Is the farmer and other business's in that local community you just put out of business going to be able to afford that produce?
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