How Food Waste, Food Shortages and Water Deficits Impact The World

You Hungry? Mais, I Could Eat.

When we fix our supper plates every evening, we tend to not notice the horrible mistakes we make at the end of the meal. Around the globe, people are constantly wasting food. Whether it be not saving leftovers or getting a second helping, humans all over are taking food from others in need. This food waste is now leading to many more foreseeable problems. Due to all of this, food waste, food shortages, water deficits, and long lasting effects will forever appear in multiple countries.

As more and more countries become developed across the globe, excess of food becomes a norm that is easily taken for granted. This leads to the problem of food waste. Food waste is usually defined at a retail and consumer level. It is described as the food loss referring to the decrease in food quality or quantity. In simpler terms, food waste is when measures are not taken to preserve the food that we already have (Home).

Statistically, about one third of the total amount of food produced globally goes to waste. This can mean loss by overeating or throwing food out. Over all, developed countries waste about 1 trillion American dollars in food annually (World Food Daily). The number is grossly emphasized when comparing it to third-world countries. In total, developed countries waste enough food to feed the sub Saharan Africa (World Food Daily). If food were not bought in excess, the extra could be sent to other developing countries (jSTOR).

In countries like the United States, food waste has a more visible effect. In the US, food waste is the second highest filler of landfills, with a total of 30-40% of national food wasted (World food daily). This leads to excess in methane to be released, causing more pollution in the air. Furthermore, the more food that people throw away, the more a country must buy in order to replace the loss. This can lead to higher food prices, leaving lower class families to not have enough money to support themselves (World Food Daily).

Lastly, a big problem with food waste is that people eat when they are not even hungry. In developed countries, people tend to eat meal after meal with snacks in between. This is due to having an abundance of food. This is also why America has a high obesity rate (PLOS One). If food is accessible, people eat it whether they are hungry are not and they waste far more than they realize. While food waste is a major problem, it is only the first domino to a long trail of food shortages.

A short-term effect of food waste is the shortages that it eventually brings. Due to the thousands of pounds of food that are wasted by people around the globe, we are soon predicting to have the largest food shortage ever recorded. At the current population increase rate, it is expected that by 2050, the population of the world will be at 9 billion. This would mean that we would need to raise our agricultural production by 50% in order to meet the demand for the year (Food Security Overview).

If countries do not step up and begin growing more food, many countries will begin to gain a higher hunger percentage by years even earlier like 2030. With Asia being the hungriest continent in the world, if efforts aren’t increased to produce more food, 67% of the food demand rate will not be reached by 2030 (Hunger Statistics). Also, India will have to meet a demand of 59% if nothing is done to increase (CNCB).

Food shortage also leads to higher prices. When the price of food goes up, small town farmers will not be able to afford to continue making food, causing even more of a food shortage. This will also lead to poor families not being able to afford to buy food. In all of the child deaths across the globe, 1/3 is due to food shortage (Food security overview). While food shortages are a growing concern, constant water deficits are a contributor to food shortages, and a problem of their own.

Water is the most essential element in today’s world. It is how we stay hydrated and, most importantly, how we keep our food growing. Sadly, due to the wastes of food requiring more and more to be grown, water tables are drying out. With the United Nations using the majority of the water that is stored for right now, it is difficult for developing countries to keep up with the amount of water that they need. It is also causing the third world countries to not have enough water to continue planting crops for developed countries.

Depleting water is the hardest to track because it cannot be tracked photographically. A town or village usually does not realize that they are running out of water until their wells are dry and it is too late (Plan B Updates). In the country of Yemen, for example, the fight for water is a battle that may not be won. The country, on average, lowers the water table by 6 meters each year. However, the water table in the capital city, Sana’a is currently depleting at a constant rate of 8 meters a year (Plan B Updates). With fear that the water table may completely vanish, the city has been searching for new wells to create irrigation systems to their plants. Since not much has been discovered, though, the country of Yemen is now deciding whether they should be thinking about moving the capital city all together.

The vast majority of freshwater is used for agricultural purposes, such as irrigation. So, a problem arises when 30-40% of freshwater gets lost through pipe leaks (What it’s Worth). Over time, the amount of water lost will make a drastic change in the amount of food that we can produce. What most don’t realize, though, is that while we may be in the clear now in regards to water usage, we are stealing from our upcoming generations.

In China, for example, there is a current deficit of 37 billion gallons of water. Since China is the leading producer of food in the world, this can lead to a catastrophe (Top 5 Countries). In total, the amount of water that China is behind on is enough to produce 37 million tons of grain. Once that is divided, we see that currently, we are stealing enough food to feed 11 million people from the next generation. With the ongoing demand of more food coming from other countries, we can predict that the amount of water needed will rise and the more food we will steal (Plan B Updates). With water deficits being the background effect off food wastes, it is easier to see the lasting effects by going into more detail of the actual problems that countries are facing.

China, while producing the most food, are also possibly wasting the most food as well.

In the country, roughly 30-50% of the national food product is wasted. Also, 70% of the total amount of waste that the country produces is from food (Brighter Green). This is expected because, culturally, the Chinese do not have a use for leftovers. They simply cook a new meal every night and throw last night’s meal away.

Also, a study at a University in Beijing was questioning a student. The student said that he admitting to wasting large amount of food because he would simply throw what he wouldn’t eat. When asked why he would fix so much food, the student simply replied that everyone else fixed so much food, so in order to appear abundant, he matched the others (Brighter Green). This shows that the desire to appear plentiful is a higher priority than safeguarding the food supply for the upcoming generations. However, most third world countries are not given the delicacy of worrying about such things.

Iran, for example, is a country that constantly finds themselves on the move. The country constantly struggles with food shortages due to wells drying up. Being that Iran is a major contributor to the rice and corn trade (a crop that heavily relies on a large amount of water), the water wells are constantly dried out. This ends up leading to multiple villages being abandoned in order to find a new place to plant crops. This type of problem can be avoided if developing countries, such as China, would take into consideration the amount of food being wasted, leading to crops not needing to be produced as quickly.

A total of about 870 million people across the gloss the globe are hungry and malnourished. 98% of these people come from third world countries (Global Citizen). Aside from China, though, these same third world countries are where the majority of the global food supply is from the same third world countries. So the question remains, how could countries that produce the majority of food be living in such hunger?

Countries in Africa are some of the hungriest. In fact, Burundi happens to be the hungriest country in the world with an amount of 73% of its population living with hunger (Global Citizen). Burundi also contributes to most of the exports of food in the world, but yet over half of its population is living below the poverty line. This is so because Burundi has problems with soil erosion, not allowing them to keep up with demand from trade while also feeding its people. So, in order to keep the economy higher, the country chooses to ship most of the food to other countries (Global Citizen).

Burundi’s main reason for not being able to feed its people leads back to the main concept of food waste. Developed countries rule the food trade, collecting all that they can in order to satisfy the needs of its gluttonous people. The constant demand leads to a high price on food for all countries. This is why even when third world countries make most of the food, they simply cannot afford to keep up with the prices set by the developed countries.

Yemen also, along with the water deficit, has a rising problem of food shortage in the country. Yemen has a total of a 32% malnourishment rate, while also holding the highest record of child malnourishment in the world (Global Citizen). In the country, over half of the 5 years olds (over 2 million children) are undernourished or stunted. With the amount of child death that are constantly arising in third world countries, it is amazing as to how developed countries continue to fill there plate and go up for more.

In conclusion, the problem of food waste is an ongoing dilemma that will probably never be solved. It is affecting how much food that developed countries will soon have access to and also begin taking away even more food that third world countries have. Overall, food wastes lead to long lasting effects of food shortages, water deficits, and hunger across the globe. If the world plan on having enough food for the upcoming generation, drastic measure will have to be taken. Food will have to be appreciated, and saved, for growing more is obviously not our safest bet.