Source: Huffington Post, 1 July 2011
According to staggering new statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced worldwide for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to some 1.3 billion tons per year. In the developing world, over 40 percent of food losses occur after harvest--while being stored or transported, and during processing and packing. In industrialized countries, more than 40 percent of losses occur as a result of retailers and consumers discarding unwanted but often perfectly edible food.
In this radio interview, Professor Jules Pretty of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, England, addresses what the new G8 initiative and billions of dollars of funding can do to support small scale farming in Africa.
The aid fund for Africa had risen from $15 to 20 billion over three years after the working sessions with the African countries, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced at the press conference concluding the L’Aquila G8 Summit. Food security and aid for the African countries had been the pivotal topics on the third and final day of the Summit, which had mustered 40 delegations around the same table.
