30 percent of the global food supply is wasted - the retail equivalent of $1 trillion of food each year, says the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN.
The FAO's second video of their Food Wastage Footprint project explains that, in addition to the retail cost of food lost, another $700 billion is also thrown out in natural resources, including $172 billion in wasted water, $42 billion in cleared forest and $429 billion in related greenhouse gas costs.
But what is most shocking to me are the social costs the FAO determined are also linked to rotted food.
Wasted food results in $150 billion in human health costs related to the use of pesticides (which also implies that the health costs of using chemicals on the 70% of food we actually eat totals at least an additional $350 billion a year). $280 billion in loss of livelihoods (as natural resources become more scarce) is also tossed out the window when we throw away food.
The FAO video also laments the costs we have not yet calculated. Loss of wetlands used to purify local water supplies, for example, or even the cost of scarce agricultural inputs such as phosphorus are costs we currently do not understand.
Yet the take away from this video is not only not to purchase only what you can consume. It is also critical we find better means of storing food - especially in places with little electricity - and of transporting it without massive loss. Food waste, it turns out, is the low hanging fruit, ready to be used to feed the world's hungry and to ensure food security for all.
