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That's why it is important to listen closely to acknowledged experts on the subject, like the United Nations World Food Programme, and not to deliberately mislead people or distort what they say in order to fit preconceptions or agenda.
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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, providing food for more than 80 million people in 75 countries last year alone.
And what did the World Food Prgramme (WFP) say are the main reasons for hunger? They list 6 and guess what isn't one of them? Right, food spoilage.
Now everyone else is wrong and you are right? ROTFLOL
Let me help with this directly from The World Food Programme (WFP). Tell me if you can find the words "spoil", "spoilage" "rot" "rotten" anywhere in that The emphasis in the text below was added by me.
"There are many reasons for the presence of hunger in the world and they are often interconnected. Here are six that we think are important.
Poverty trap
People living in poverty cannot afford nutritious food for themselves and their families. This makes them weaker and less able to earn the money that would help them escape poverty and hunger. This is not just a day-to-day problem: when children are chronically malnourished, or ‘stunted’, it can affect their future income, condemning them to a life of poverty and hunger.
In developing countries, farmers often cannot afford seeds, so they cannot plant the crops that would provide for their families. They may have to cultivate crops without the tools and fertilizers they need. Others have no land or water or education. In short, the poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.
Lack of investment in agriculture
Too many developing countries lack key agricultural infrastructure, such as enough roads, warehouses and irrigation. The results are high transport costs, lack of storage facilities and unreliable water supplies. All conspire to limit agricultural yields and access to food.
Investments in improving land management, using water more efficiently and making more resistant seed types available can bring big improvements.
Research by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization shows that investment in agriculture is five times more effective in reducing poverty and hunger than investment in any other sector.
Climate and weather
Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and long periods of drought are on the increase -- with calamitous consequences for the hungry poor in developing countries.
Drought is one of the most common causes of food shortages in the world. In 2011, recurrent drought caused crop failures and heavy livestock losses in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. In 2012 there was a similar situation in the Sahel region of West Africa.
In many countries, climate change is exacerbating already adverse natural conditions. Increasingly, the world's fertile farmland is under threat from erosion, salination and desertification. Deforestation by human hands accelerates the erosion of land which could be used for growing food.
War and displacement
Across the globe, conflicts consistently disrupt farming and food production. Fighting also forces millions of people to flee their homes, leading to hunger emergencies as the displaced find themselves without the means to feed themselves. The conflict in Syria is a recent example.
In war, food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers will starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local markets. Fields are often mined and water wells contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their land.
Ongoing conflict in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo has contributed significantly to the level of hunger in the two countries. By comparison, hunger is on the retreat in more peaceful parts of Africa such as Ghana and Rwanda.
Unstable markets
In recent years, the price of food products has been very unstable. Roller-coaster food prices make it difficult for the poorest people to access nutritious food consistently. The poor need access to adequate food all year round. Price spikes may temporarily put food out of reach, which can have lasting consequences for small children.
When prices rise, consumers often shift to cheaper, less-nutritious foods, heightening the risks of micronutrient deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition.
Food wastage
One third of all food produced (1.3 billion tons) is never consumed. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security in a world where one in 8 is hungry.
Producing this food also uses up precious natural resources that we need to feed the planet. Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River. Producing this food also adds 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with consequences for the climate and, ultimately, for food production."
So please, read the above and if you can find a reference to the cause that you claim will be fixed by the invention, and that would be spoilage, do tell.
The end of my discussion with you on this thread. I won't bother check back, see ya.
And what did the World Food Prgramme (WFP) say are the main reasons for hunger? They list 6 and guess what isn't one of them? Right, food spoilage.
You said there were 5 until I corrected you. And the 6th is the one this thread is involved with, food wastage or spoilage in the form of rotting produce.
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Now everyone else is wrong and you are right? ROTFLOL
I don't know about everyone else, but you are definitely dead wrong on this. I corrected your deliberate fakery , and now you're denying it by quoting my own words back at me as if I had said something else. It is the worst kind of manipulation.
It's maddening, it's irrational, and it seems to me you are doing it deliberately just to be as annoying as possible.
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Let me help with this directly from The World Food Programme (WFP). Tell me if you can find the words "spoil", "spoilage" "rot" "rotten" anywhere in that The emphasis in the text below was added by me.
I'm sorry you don't understand their use of the term "Food wastage," but it includes all forms of what we call spoilage... being despoiled by rodent or insect infestation, soaking up liquids, or rotting, among others. The Israeli invention intends to reduce the latter.
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The end of my discussion with you on this thread. I won't bother check back, see ya.
Right here on CD. California's drought affects food production. Spoiling isn't the biggest concern, just getting certain foods is, like Avocados. So what, they just bring them up from Mexico and elsewhere. Food travels hundreds and even thousands of miles and arrives fresh and what dictates getting it? A consumer willing to pay for it.
And look, just click and get fresh fruit and veggies delivered to your doorstep:
Does it cost a lot? You bet but for a price you can get it. How does the person in an impoverished location get it? Well, they can't. Not because the food would spoil on the way there (there are other services that delivery anywhere) but because they don't have Internet connectivity nor a computer.
Would the invention so touted by the OP solve a food spoiling problem? It might but would it solve the hunger problem? A big N O.
Lol, I bought some rice in Whole Foods that said it was from Bhutan, so that right there is a prime example of how food can travel easily if there is profit in it. Also, I bought five apples that were from New Zealand, that is a very long way to travel all the way to Florida; they were very fresh and not all that much, comparable with the US sourced honey crisps in price. But again, there is profit in bringing those apples from NZ all the way to Florida to sell.
So it seem to me there is plenty of capability to bring fresh food very long distances, so the spoil issue is a moot issue, as I have just demonstrated that food can in fact be brought from a far distance and still be fresh. Of course the OP still will not understand this simple concept.
So it seem to me there is plenty of capability to bring fresh food very long distances, so the spoil issue is a moot issue, as I have just demonstrated that food can in fact be brought from a far distance and still be fresh. Of course the OP still will not understand this simple concept.
Read the World Food Programme website and open your eyes to the real world!
Of course, in the first world, where rice from Bhutan and apples from New Zealand can reach your overpriced supermarket, you can't see the problem, if you have the money to buy. But in the third world it looks very, very different.
There is much of the undeveloped world that does not have modern transportation networks, and much of it does not yet have electricity, so there are no refrigerators, and no speedy transportation and fresh produce does not last long at all. If food comes to you from a central market market on a donkey cart, or in a pushcart, or carried on a person's back, then the perishability of fresh produce can be a major issue.
This is what I have been talking about since my first post. Y'all keep talking about something entirely different, something irrelevant to my topic.
The OP started this thread claiming that some invention was THE solution to hunger by reducing food spoilage.
Time and time again, it has been shown that food spoilage IS NOT the main problem and everyone from the WFP to other groups and concerns dealing with hunger on the planet have agreed.
In case there is any confusion, logistics = money. Why is it that nearly every organization asks for money to address the hunger problem? Because without money the best logistics programs mean absolutely zip.
No money = no food. Read the last post from the OP and even he admits it but won't come right out and say it because it shows that the invention while novel and maybe even helpful, doesn't fix the problem of hunger and doesn't even fix any of the primary problems of hunger.
What is comes down to is that the OP wants people to think like him and if they don't they are all wrong. Even when replied to with courtesy and in complete fairness, replete with direct links and quoted texts, the OP just changes the story.
He argued that food spoilage was the reason people where going hungry. He then changed the story to focus on fresh fruits and vegetables as being necessary to address hunger in the world when that too, isn't even remotely true. Fresh fruits and fresh vegetables are not necessary to address hunger. In many countries, their culture revolves around meat as a primary diet, going back centuries yet now, just to support the OP, everything is about fresh fruit and vegetables.
Utter nonsense that no one else believes. You can address hunger with foods, including fruits and vegetables that are not as picked fresh.
As for logistics, there is hunger right here in the USA yet the OP maintains getting food to people is the problem. Where in the USA is it difficult to transport food? More nonsense. Then the story changes again, now it is all about India. While there are more hungry people in India and some other countries than in the USA, that doesn't change THE FACT that hunger exists in the USA too. So the false standards keep changing.
Almost anything can be moved to almost any point on the planet, in massive quantities. It just takes money and availability and according to the WFP, a lot of food is wasted to that means availability of food sources isn't the problem.
With enough money even the a shipshod logistics program could move enough food to feed the world's hungry. Does that mean such an effort could be sustained in light of a growing population? No one knows with absolute certainty but that isn't part of the OP nor the replies. It is a completely different topic.
Clarifying a few points which have become confused here...
The UN World Food Programme is headquartered in Italy, where it is known as Programma Alimentare Mondiale. It's documents are written in Italian, and then translated into English by Italians. In some cases the translation is a little awkward to native English speakers in the USA. Perhaps it is not 100% the same language as if it had been written in the US, such as the use of the word "programme" rather than "program," but this is neither strange or unusual to anyone reading international documents.
Much has been made of their use of the term "Food Wastage" as one of the 6 major causes of hunger, rather than the more expected American term "Food Spoilage," but in fact they mean the same thing.
Here's the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of the word WFP used...
WASTAGE. : loss, decrease, or destruction of something (as by use, decay, erosion, or leakage); especially : wasteful or avoidable loss of something valuable.
In other words, much has been made of absolutely nothing, because food rot IS food wastage, and food rot in fresh produce is what the Israeli invention seeks to reduce.
The fact that fresh food rots is a serious concern to the WFP, is evidenced in the list of foods they distribute.
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The rations themselves can consist of:
Cereals - wheat, maize, sorghum, rice
Pulses - beans, peas
Vegetable oil
Salt
Sugar
Cereal blends
High Energy biscuits
Bread
Notice that fresh produce is not included in the aid rations. Why? Because in a typical relief aid effort fresh produce will often rot before it can be distributed. So despite the known nutritional advantages of including fresh produce in the diet, with all its attendant vitamins, the lack of refrigeration and often extended times in transport have them choose to work only with more stable foods. This invention might be able to give them a new option. Clearly that's a good thing.
Now, to straighten out the confusion between famine & disaster aid, and chronic hunger relief, what WFP does, along with such NGOs as Oxfam and Red Cross, is primarily to provide famine & disaster aid - bringing food to people on a temporary basis due to a short term disruption in normal food supplies caused by famine, flood, warfare, natural disasters, and currently the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
What chronic hunger relief addresses is the long term threat to health and life from people not getting enough food, or not getting sufficiently nutritious food to allow them to be well and productive and live a full life. This is a different mindset, and is addressed primarily by different organizations. Their clients are primarily people in remote areas of undeveloped countries, which typically don't have well developed infrastructures such as roads that would permit rapid transportation of perishable foods, or refrigeration that would allow storage of perishable foods for longer than a few days. What if perishable food could be made less perishable, so it could be kept edible for much longer at room temperatures? This is what the Israeli invention could enable... allowing fresh food to be distributed to more people in more remote places.
And in cutting food wastage, it also fulfills another major goal of Green Living - to do more with less, reducing the resources needed to feed people. This conservation of energy and resources is highly desirable in the context of commitments to achieve sustainability and conserve the environment for generations to come.
Making fresh produce last longer, how could any reasonable person not see the value in that?
The end of my discussion with you on this thread. I won't bother check back, see ya.
As it turned out, like so many other things Mack has said here, this statement was false and misleading. Unfortunately.
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Originally Posted by Mack Knife
For the benefit of others:
The OP started this thread claiming that some invention was THE solution to hunger by reducing food spoilage.
Absolutely not true. I never said it was THE solution, nor do I believe that. I feel it could be a useful tool to address one of 6 - count them six! - main causes that WFP mentions.
Read what I actually said for yourself. The rest of this was cut from the same cloth, so I won't bother going any further. It's all just the same rubbish.
As it turned out, like so many other things Mack has said here, this statement was false and misleading. Unfortunately.
Absolutely not true. I never said it was THE solution, nor do I believe that. I feel it could be a useful tool to address one of 6 - count them six! - main causes that WFP mentions.
Read what I actually said for yourself. The rest of this was cut from the same cloth, so I won't bother going any further. It's all just the same rubbish.
Apparently, learning to read wasn't a priority...
I said "The end of my discussion with you on this thread. I won't bother check back, see ya"
And to that end, none of my posts after that are directed to engage in a discussion with the individual complaining so much.
Absolutely not true. In fact when the authentic information from WFP is read in context and in its entirety, it reinforces what I said. What I refused to accept was a phony version that had been altered and manipulated to deceive. Snip
.
That is a lie.
The text was taken directly from the WFP site and anyone could follow the link to determine it's authenticity. The text was not altered and I clearly indicated I added emphasis but did not change a word. The link to the source was included so everyone could read the entire site if they chose to do so.
You are lying. Everyone else can see you are lying too.
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The emphasis in the text below was added by me.
