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How to win the war on hunger – with better roads in Africa
Bjorn Lomborg hits the nail on the head yet again — where food waste matters:
,,,In Britain, for example, the greatest waste is in salads, vegetables, and fruits – luxuries when compared with the cheap calories contained in the grains and tubers consumed throughout the developing world. Smaller households in rich countries waste more per person, because it is harder to put everything to use, while richer households add waste when they can afford to buy extra “just to be on the safe side.”
By contrast, the world’s hungry poor waste very little, simply because they cannot afford to. In Africa, daily food waste averages 500 calories per person – but consumers account for only 5% of this loss. More than three-quarters of the waste occurs well before the kitchen, in inefficient agriculture, because birds and rats eat crops during harvest, for example, or pests spoil grain stores.
There are many remedies for this kind of waste – from the “curing” of roots and tubers to minimize damage, to more expensive refrigeration. So why aren’t these technologies – widely used in richer countries – adopted in the developing world?
The answer is a lack of infrastructure. If there are no proper roads linking fields to markets, farmers cannot easily sell their surplus produce, which may then spoil before it can be eaten. Improving road and rail capacity enables farmers to reach buyers – and fertilizer and other agricultural inputs to reach farmers. Supplying reliable electricity permits grains to be dried and vegetables to be kept cool….
@ How to win the war on hunger – Agenda – The World Economic Forum:
Source: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-win-war-on-hunger-with-better.html
