Food Waste is a Growing Problem

Food Waste is a Growing Problem

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

One of the blessings of our country’s productive and innovative agriculture is plentiful and reasonably priced food supply. Unfortunately a curse of that bounty is food waste. Americans throw away 25 percent of the food they bring home.

Kai Robertson, Director of Food Beverage and Agriculture Practice with the Business For Social Responsibility, sheds light on some startling statistics surrounding the amount of food wasted in the United States each year.

Robertson: “More than 67 billion pounds of food ends up in the landfill -- so that number is actually on the low side and that is a number that has been growing over the last several decades. When you compared it and put it into context: you have on one hand you have 67 billon pounds of food in the landfill not being eaten and when you look at the number of Americans living in poverty, we have 47 million Americans living in poverty. If you just do the simple math, theoretically you could get more than three meals a day out of that for every hungry American.”

Robertson says that food waste is a multi-faceted issue and solutions to reducing the waste can be found across the food chain. There is no silver bullet, she says but rather many small marble-sized solutions that collectively can make a difference.

Robertson: “So the key is to be thinking a bit more innovatively about the topic of food waste. How can we reduce it and provide people the food who need it and reduce the impact on our wallets and environment.”

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.