Short showers, lights off, washing machines only in the evening, no TVs or computers on standby. The more, the less, each of us is trying to put together a personal mini-guide to savings, taking into account the harsh winter that awaits us among expensive bills, a food crisis and inflation. Bye ISTAT in August 2022 recorded an increase in the national consumer price index by 8.4% year on year., Guardian publishes an interesting article that explains how The EU is spending more food than it mattershelping to keep the prices of essentials high. According to a study by Feedback Eu, About 153 million tons of food is thrown away in the European Union every year., which is twice the previous estimates and, above all, 15 million tons more than shipped. So not only are we throwing away more food than in the past, we are throwing away more than we bring in. An insult to poverty, if we remember the food crisis of the latter, caused by the war, and the luxury that we can no longer afford if we do not want the prices of raw materials and processed products to continue to rise. To understand the scale of the losses, explains the British newspaper, it is enough to imagine that the amount of wheat thrown away in the EU countries alone is equal to about half of Ukraine’s grain exports and a quarter of the grain exports of other EU countries.
“In a time of high food prices and a cost of living crisis, it’s a scandal that the EU is potentially throwing away more food than it imports,” Frank Mechilsen, director of Feedback Eu and author of the study. The EU now has a huge opportunity to set legally binding targets to halve food waste from producer to consumer by 2030 to tackle climate change and improve food security.“Because of the war this year, prices for wheat, corn and soybeans even exceeded the records set at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis, seriously complicating the entire bread, pasta and biscuit production chain. adding to all this the effects of extreme weather events defining the climate crisis, it is clear why there are 40 million more people in the world at risk of food insecurity than the peak reached in 2020, according to the latest FAO report.
“Due to the energy situation, the situation with fertilizers, the uncertainties in the world, including transport and shipping, not to mention climate change, we must admit that we will not see food prices at the level we were used to ten years agoAbdolreza Abbassian, grain market analyst and former senior economist at FAO, said the era of cheap food is over and prices are likely to remain high even after the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war. EU countries have pledged to halve food waste as part of the UN Sustainable Development development. However, almost 10 years later, they have not achieved much and our economy is still producing an incredibly large amount of food waste,” explains Piotr Barczak, Senior Policy Officer at the European Environment Bureau (Eeb), which is urging countries to take action against waste. the entire food supply chain, including production, processing and catering.
According to Olivier de Schutter, Co-Chair of the International Panel on Sustainable Food Systems and UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, the problem is that The agri-food industry has historically believed that waste is more beneficial than efficiency.. “At both ends of the food chain, reducing waste is expensive, and selling people more food than they need is profitable,” he said. “Expiry dates are also set to force people to buy more than they can actually consume.” In light of the worrisome food crisis, Brussels promised to make the necessary efforts to reverse this vicious circle. He is expected to submit a proposal for the world’s first legally binding targets to limit food waste by the end of the year. The goal, set by 43 green nonprofits in support of the EU feedback request, is to reduce waste by 50% by 2030. Let’s see what member countries can do.
Source: Elle