Factors Contributing to the Problem of Food Waste

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread” – Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist World hunger is one of the biggest problems faced in this world today. About 24,000 people die every day, and most of these deaths are faced by children under five. Even though there is a lot of food in the world, some people in the world can’t access these foods because of poverty. About 1/10 of the world population suffer from chronic hunger every year. Because of the hunger problem, the majority of people suffer from blindness, anemia, malnutrition related problems and other diseases because they are not getting enough diet.

1.0 Introduction One of the most serious social issues in the world today is increasing of food waste. It produces various impacts to society and economy. Food waste can be defined as food that uneaten or being discarded by human (EU FUSIONS, 2016). Developed countries such as the United States and Europe, mainly waste the foods at the consumption stage, whereas developing countries like the Philippines and India mostly waste the foods at the producing side (eatfortheearth, 2014). However, food waste is the edible items that purposely discard by human and according to research, up to 30 percent of food will be wasted globally every year (Dahl, Dellaventura, Morabito, Perry and Sinodinos, 2014).

Food wastage in the poor countries is due to lack of technology and infrastructure and result to as much as quarter of harvest getting lost (Global issues, 2010). According to Global issues (2010), world hunger results from poverty. World hunger is an issue of concern and continuous efforts should be made in order to save millions of people around the world. Solving the real cause of poverty is crucial towards permanently solving the world hunger problem. A study conducted by Food Agricultural Organization revealed that an approximated 1.3 billion tones of food is usually wasted every year (FAO 2011).

People are not getting the amount of food they need for their daily life because all the food that is being wasted, and they don't have the opportunities to get food. As people are losing their jobs and food prices are going up, it makes it harder for those people who don’t have money to get food. Food dumping by individuals and organizations makes it harder for individuals to get food because nourishments is being discarded rather than given to the ones that needs it the most (Food Aid as Dumping). In the USA 30 to 40% of the sustenance supply is wasted, leveling with more than 20 pounds of nourishment for each individual every month (World Food Day). Therefore, as a result of throwing away food, many of the poor people are not getting the food that they need.

Although there are people living in this state of condition, they are people in the developing countries who live in worst condition. “Poverty is the worst form of violence” Mahatma Gandhi. People in the developing countries are a greater risk of absolute poverty. Billions of people living in developing countries lack access to a clean environment therefore; this leads to diseases and malnutrition. Millions of people die each year from these diseases “ being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody is much greater hunger, A greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat” Mother Teresa.

In developing countries most are struggling economically to provide enough food and jobs. Those who are not employed is the majority of the people with families that are suffering from hunger. The short term consequences of starvation are terrible. More and more people are dying from this each day. In this year we are expected to lose 7,615,360 people from hunger.

World hunger is one of the biggest problems faced in our world today. “About 21,000 people die every day from hunger.” Most of these deaths are children under five years of age. There is a lot of food in the world, but people in poverty-stricken communities do not have access to well-balanced meals. “13.5 percent of the world’s population suffers from chronic hunger every year.” Longterm hunger can lead to many illnesses like blindness, anemia, malnutrition and other deadly diseases. In this paper I will be talking about problems of world hunger and solutions to end world hunger.

What makes the situation worse is that the hunger turned to famine many times and in different places without intervention of human rights activists. One example of this is, in Ethiopia, a widespread famine affected the inhabitants from 1983 to 1985 and resulted in more than 400,000 deaths. This is just one example of disability of human rights organization to meet human needs, and there are many other examples also happened after long time of establishing this organization. Moreover, human rights say that all human beings have the right to eat an adequate food, however, what happens in real life is different. According to world health organization, on the global scale, each year two billion illnesses are caused by unsafe food and the number is

As stated above consumers contributed to 21 percent of food waste in 2010 and are still considered to be one of the biggest contributors of food waste even now. Consumers often throw out food because they have more than they need. Consumers often buy food in advance which leads to them stocking up in bulk on food items that they think they will need. These large quantities of food items usually go without being eaten and get thrown away rather quickly. Consumers also throw out food because of expiration dates.

Farmers suffered greatly, thousands of families who farmed had to sell their farms as it became uneconomical to grow crops. Millions of farmers went to live in the big cities hunting for work. The value of America's foreign trade dropped from $9 billion to $3 billion, as other countries retaliated against US import tariffs. One result of this meant that share values changed dramatically, for example, the shares of the union cigar fell from $113 each, to just $4 each. People blamed the depression on Hoover, as he and the government believed in "Laissez-Faire", which meant that the government took a back seat, did not interfere, and let the economy and companies etc, run with no government help.