Post by Stallit 2 de Halfo on Mar 13, 2008 23:03:09 GMT
US: Food Waste and Hunger Exist Side by Side
by Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK - ''Do you want these? They are so fresh,'' says Catherine, holding up a bunch of grapes she just pulled out from one of the trash bags piled up on the sidewalk. ''Take this, man. It's good too,'' adds her friend Morlan, holding out a loaf of bread.
Though happy to have found something for dinner, both Catherine, 21, and Morlan, 19, wonder why some edible food is thrown out as garbage in New York City
''They only sell this food to the rich,'' says Catherine pointing to the upscale grocery store that put out the bags.
Inside the store, the manager is visibly upset with Catherine and other young people who are stuffing their backpacks with fruits and vegetables from the trash bags. ''They are picking up garbage,'' says the manager. ''I don't know why they are doing this.''
''I have zero cash right now, and no place to stay,'' Morlan told Tierramérica. ''What do you expect me to do?''
Such scenes are becoming increasingly commonplace on the streets of U.S. cities, despite the enormous quantity of food that the world's most affluent nation produces every year.
Official surveys indicate that every year more than 350 billion pounds (160 billion kg) of edible food is available for human consumption in the United States. Of that total, nearly 100 billion pounds (45 billion kg) -- including fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, and grain products -- are lost to waste by retailers, restaurants, and consumers.
By contrast, the amount of food required to meet the needs of the hungry is only four billion pounds, according to Food Not Bombs, an advocacy group, which estimates that every year more than 30 million people in the United States are going hungry on regular basis.
''The American government has billions of dollars in surplus money, which could go towards poverty elimination nationally or globally,'' Samana Siddiqui of the Sound Vision Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit group, told Tierramérica.
But Joyce Glenn, a novelist who lives next to the grocery store, where Catherine looks for food in the trash bags, has a different take on the wastage of food and over-consumption in her country.
''Americans consume as much as they are able in order to lull themselves into a sense of complacency as long as the need for food, as well as even luxurious food, gives them a sense of well being,'' says Glenn, who is in her 60s, and often invites homeless people she sees in the street into her home.
Noting that food production in the United States and the world has increased more than the population, food rights groups say they believe more people are likely to suffer from lack of food as long the agri-business firms continue to be driven primarily by profits.
''We don't have a democratic say in how food is produced or distributed,'' according to Food Not Bombs. ''In our society, it is acceptable to profit from other people's suffering and misery.''
The group's position is based on the assertion that people from the more affluent and middle class sectors of U.S. society are drawn to over-consumption as a lifestyle -- validated by a study carried out by the Washington-based World Watch Institute earlier this year.
''U.S. consumption styles have not only spread to other industrialised nations,'' says the State of the World 2004, ''they have succeeded in penetrating much of the developing world as well.''
The study shows how millions of middle class people across the globe have adopted the diets, transportation systems and lifestyles pioneered in the United States.
To some degree, ''rising consumption has helped meet basic needs,'' said World Watch president Christopher Flavin. ''But this unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on, and making it even harder for the world poor to meet their basic needs.''
According to the report, the U.S. and Western European consumers, who constitute only about 12 percent of the world population, are responsible for about 60 percent of consumption of private consumer goods.
By contrast, the people of Latin American and the Caribbean, whose share in the world population is just nine percent, spend only seven percent on non-essential household goods.
''Agriculture, free trade, and intellectual property policies have become a leading edge of the U.S. corporate push for global economic dominance,'' says Kathy McAfee, executive director of the San Francisco-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (better known as Food First).
''But at the same time,'' she adds, ''farmers and ecologists around the world have been achieving impressive successes in increasing food production by sustainable methods. We are seeing the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of small farmers from Mexico to Brazil, from India to Thailand to the Philippines in defence of their rights.''
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0904-20.htm
by Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK - ''Do you want these? They are so fresh,'' says Catherine, holding up a bunch of grapes she just pulled out from one of the trash bags piled up on the sidewalk. ''Take this, man. It's good too,'' adds her friend Morlan, holding out a loaf of bread.
Though happy to have found something for dinner, both Catherine, 21, and Morlan, 19, wonder why some edible food is thrown out as garbage in New York City
''They only sell this food to the rich,'' says Catherine pointing to the upscale grocery store that put out the bags.
Inside the store, the manager is visibly upset with Catherine and other young people who are stuffing their backpacks with fruits and vegetables from the trash bags. ''They are picking up garbage,'' says the manager. ''I don't know why they are doing this.''
''I have zero cash right now, and no place to stay,'' Morlan told Tierramérica. ''What do you expect me to do?''
Such scenes are becoming increasingly commonplace on the streets of U.S. cities, despite the enormous quantity of food that the world's most affluent nation produces every year.
Official surveys indicate that every year more than 350 billion pounds (160 billion kg) of edible food is available for human consumption in the United States. Of that total, nearly 100 billion pounds (45 billion kg) -- including fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, and grain products -- are lost to waste by retailers, restaurants, and consumers.
By contrast, the amount of food required to meet the needs of the hungry is only four billion pounds, according to Food Not Bombs, an advocacy group, which estimates that every year more than 30 million people in the United States are going hungry on regular basis.
''The American government has billions of dollars in surplus money, which could go towards poverty elimination nationally or globally,'' Samana Siddiqui of the Sound Vision Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit group, told Tierramérica.
But Joyce Glenn, a novelist who lives next to the grocery store, where Catherine looks for food in the trash bags, has a different take on the wastage of food and over-consumption in her country.
''Americans consume as much as they are able in order to lull themselves into a sense of complacency as long as the need for food, as well as even luxurious food, gives them a sense of well being,'' says Glenn, who is in her 60s, and often invites homeless people she sees in the street into her home.
Noting that food production in the United States and the world has increased more than the population, food rights groups say they believe more people are likely to suffer from lack of food as long the agri-business firms continue to be driven primarily by profits.
''We don't have a democratic say in how food is produced or distributed,'' according to Food Not Bombs. ''In our society, it is acceptable to profit from other people's suffering and misery.''
The group's position is based on the assertion that people from the more affluent and middle class sectors of U.S. society are drawn to over-consumption as a lifestyle -- validated by a study carried out by the Washington-based World Watch Institute earlier this year.
''U.S. consumption styles have not only spread to other industrialised nations,'' says the State of the World 2004, ''they have succeeded in penetrating much of the developing world as well.''
The study shows how millions of middle class people across the globe have adopted the diets, transportation systems and lifestyles pioneered in the United States.
To some degree, ''rising consumption has helped meet basic needs,'' said World Watch president Christopher Flavin. ''But this unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on, and making it even harder for the world poor to meet their basic needs.''
According to the report, the U.S. and Western European consumers, who constitute only about 12 percent of the world population, are responsible for about 60 percent of consumption of private consumer goods.
By contrast, the people of Latin American and the Caribbean, whose share in the world population is just nine percent, spend only seven percent on non-essential household goods.
''Agriculture, free trade, and intellectual property policies have become a leading edge of the U.S. corporate push for global economic dominance,'' says Kathy McAfee, executive director of the San Francisco-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (better known as Food First).
''But at the same time,'' she adds, ''farmers and ecologists around the world have been achieving impressive successes in increasing food production by sustainable methods. We are seeing the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of small farmers from Mexico to Brazil, from India to Thailand to the Philippines in defence of their rights.''
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0904-20.htm