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Japanese dispose one-fourth of available food
(Asianewsnet)
Updated: 2008-07-03 16:38 The Japanese import a large quantity of food from all over the world, but waste much of it. According to an estimate by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, households and companies waste about 19 million tonnes of food per year. Of that, about 6 million tonnes is edible.
The latter figure is about 1.6 times the annual food consumption of the west African country of Mali, one of the world's poorest countries. According to statistics from the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry, each person in the country consumes an average of 2,548 kilocalories per day, including wasted foodstuffs. Actual caloric intake, therefore, averages 1,891 kilocalories. Japanese dispose of one-fourth of available foods. Though the country is known to have some of the world's best energy-saving technologies such as hybrid cars, energy efficiency for food is surprisingly low. The Yomiuri Shimbun ran a five-day series of articles starting June 19 reporting on relevant numerical data. At the Yomiuri, we believe wasting food is just as problematic as wasting oil. We received many responses from readers, many of them supporting the articles. Japan is not the only country where there is a deep-seated habit of overconsumption and wastage of food. Estimates by international organisations show that in the United States, about US$48 billion worth of perishable food is wasted annually. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and other concerned entities have proposed to member countries that the quantity of wasted foodstuffs should be halved by 2025. In other parts of the world, such large-scale waste is unacceptable. Increasing demand for biofuels for developed countries and demand for food emerging industrialised countries have caused grain prices to skyrocket. This means that already rich countries and rapidly growing nations are beginning to scramble for limited food resources. Poor countries have been driven out of the race and are unable to buy enough food. As a result, serious food shortages and food-shortage-related violence has occurred in some countries. Though oil can be replaced by other energy sources such as nuclear power and solar power generation, food cannot be replaced. In addition, farmland in many emerging economic nations are being transformed into industrial sites at a surprisingly fast pace. If farmland acreage continues to decline, and demand for food continues to increase at the current pace, food shortages will surely worsen. |
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