At the end of April this year, China passed a food waste prevention law that now prohibits competitive eating and the making of binge-eating videos; people caught performing either of these two acts face hefty fines. In addition, restaurants can charge extra if patrons leave excessive food on their plates. Conversely, any restaurant found wasting large quantities of food or misleading consumers into making excessive orders will also face fines. This is said to be a follow-up to China’s ‘clean-plate campaign’, in August last year, during which people were encouraged to order less food at restaurants, so that they could eat everything on their plates and thus reduce food waste.
Meanwhile, in June, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it was investing US$1 billion in funding food banks across America. Part of the initiative under President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan to rescue, recover, and rebuild America, the USDA said half of the money is earmarked for the purchase of nutritious food for state food banks. Of the other half, four-fifths is to go towards, among other things, strengthening farming systems and the rest is to be given as grants to allow agencies to expand their reach into low-income and remote communities.
When superpowers like the US and China turn their attention to ramping up food supply and halting food waste, the rest of the world should tune in. Not that there is anything mysterious at play here. They do not know anything other countries don’t, they are simply acting with foresight in taking the information that is already out there seriously and putting measures in place to try and avoid catastrophe in the future.
The 2021 edition of “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World ‘’ was published on Monday last and it established the truth of what had been suspected about the events of last year. A joint production of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organisation, the report confirmed that world hunger and malnutrition levels had greatly increased in 2020, mostly owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of conflict, climate change and gaping weaknesses in global food systems; every region of the world has cause for concern.
According to the report, the number of people unable to access adequate food year-round rose by 320 million to 2.37 billion last year. There are now an estimated 768 million of undernourished people in the world, up by some 118 million last year. Of those, 41 million are at risk of literally starving to death.
Even if there are immediate and drastic changes to the way the world operates in terms of food supply, it is highly unlikely that the UN Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger will be met. In fact, it is currently poised to be missed by a margin of over 600 million people. Zero hunger is among the 17 goals set by the UN six years ago with a 2030 end date. But it has been 47 years since, in the face of outrageous food inequities in the world, the UN General Assembly had declared that, “Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop fully and maintain their physical and mental faculties”.
In spite of several actions taken since then, malnutrition, in all its forms, is still rampant and affects mostly children with millions being either emaciated and starving or on the other end of the spectrum, overweight and obese. The latter occurs because in many parts of the world, meals that are free and/or cheap are either processed and packaged in some form, or are so-called fast foods and deficient in nutrients. In America, nutritionists are beginning to hope that under the USDA’s new plan, more people will have access to fresh, wholesome food. In fact, even prior to the announcement in June, some food banks had already begun to move away from distributing high-sugar and high-sodium rations.
Guyana looks to China and the US for products and funding and sometimes even cues on how to govern and live. However, it does not seem like the lessons those countries are quickly learning on food and nutrition security will be as easily absorbed. Over the last few decades, although out of sync with Guyana’s noted commitment to agriculture, a not so inexplicable, yet disappointing shift from fresh to processed food has been observed; today it continues to grow and along with it, a rise in non-communicable diseases, some of which are directly linked to diet.
Every few years, local farmers suffer significant losses when farmlands flood and this automatically drives up fresh food prices. Low-income families tend to fall back on canned and packaged food items that have been imported, are cheaper and offer satiety, but not nutrition. Who can blame them when this has long been the example set by successive governments, barring the Burnham administration of course.
As a case in point, food hampers distributed to flood victims or families in need will invariably contain imported canned items. Somehow, it never seems to occur to whomever is managing the distribution to acquire fresh fruit and vegetables from local farmers or markets to ensure that the hampers offer nutrition rather than just food. Of course fruits and vegetables are perishable, but many last a week or more in our open-air markets and while it might be difficult logistically, it would not be impossible to make purchases on the day of, or close to the distribution date.
There is hunger and malnutrition in this country and in the world at large, despite there being enough nutritious food available to feed every global inhabitant. However, this does not happen because there is inequitable distribution and concomitant waste. This problem has remained insurmountable for centuries, anyone who manages to solve it now should be seriously considered for a Nobel prize.
