Agriculture is responsible for more than a third of the greenhouse gases worldwide because of the procedures used in conventional farming. What's more, whenever food rots away at a garbage dump, methane escapes into the atmosphere, a climate gas with an effect 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.
We waste HALF of the food produced (Video 1), and one of the tragedies among many, is that it has a disastrous impact on the world climate.
Imagine: every other head of lettuce, every other potato is thrown away because it does not meet supermarket standards.
According to the filmmakers of this video, the one billion hungry people could be fed three times over on the food thrown away in Europe and North America!
The supermarket system requires that they constantly have the complete selection of merchandise on offer. The bread on the shelves has to be fresh until late in the evening. Strawberries are in demand at any time of the year. Everything has to look just right: One withered leaf of lettuce, a crack in a potato or a dent in an apple -- in the trash they go. Containers of yogurt and other dairy products are thrown away two days before the 'sell by' date.
The more we can decentralize our food production, and buy from farmers markets, neighborhood food co ops and each other, the more we can support systems that do not necessitate this insanity.
--Bibi Farber
Original source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4YoGt0GkKE
