Half of all food produced in the US is thrown away?

[earthJoker]

I don't have access to the paper. So I can't give you the answer.

Maybe this source gives you some insight: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Publicat...Highlights.pdf

That said, I am of course aware, that rural in Canada or USA is something different to rural in Europe. You hardly get further away from a major city than 1 hour here.

[LittleFuzzy]

I don't have access to the paper. So I can't give you the answer.

Maybe this source gives you some insight: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Publicat...Highlights.pdf

That said, I am of course aware, that rural in Canada or USA is something different to rural in Europe. You hardly get further away from a major city than 1 hour here.

It said what I thought it would say. There is no normalization. What constitutes "urban" is not the same between individual countries who statistics are taken, much less across these continental conglomerates you're using. The only normalization they've done is in tracking an individual's statistics across time. You can use it to compare the trends in urbanization, EJ, not to compare where states are in comparison to each other right now.

[earthJoker]

Well then we only could rely on my previous simpler approach. Just add up the major agglomerations and check what % of the whole population lives in them.

[Hazir]

Like that really is relevant to the wastage reaching these proportions. I will admit to never having been in the dark heart of America but it must be quite something if living there where food is produced means no access to it.

[wiggin]

Like that really is relevant to the wastage reaching these proportions. I will admit to never having been in the dark heart of America but it must be quite something if living there where food is produced means no access to it.

Our agriculture is specialized and industrialized, Hazir. Blueberries aren't typically grown in the same places that make, say, corn. It's not likely that you can secure most of your produce needs from purely 'local' foods - or at least not in an energy efficient manner. So it's entirely possible that you could get a much better variety of food at - broadly - cheaper prices in some cities than you might in some rural areas. That isn't to say that all food will be more plentiful and cheaper - after all, local food will be nearly free. I grew up in the Midwest, and when I moved to the East Coast I was utterly flabbergasted at the cost of corn. I couldn't imagine paying more than 5 or 10 cents an ear during peak season. But other stuff - notably peaches and nectarines and the like - were both cheaper and fresher.

The point is that there are a lot of elements that go into the cost of food, and it's not at all surprising that some foods might be pricier and harder to get in rural areas.

[Hazir]

I could guess mono-cultures on an idustrial scale limits your choices. It doesn't have to mean that your only alternative for your food on your table is an pricey mini-market 1 hrs drive away. I may not have grown up amongst acres of corn, but I have spent a lot of time in villages surrounded by endless seas of grain in Turkey. At the risk of sounding hopelessly out of touch and nostaligic; in those villages people managed to fill in the gaps that modern distribution didn't cover. But again, none of that is all that relevant to the question of wastage and how to resolve it.

[Aimless]

I wonder what it would take (in the US) to make some of that food worthwhile to redistribute or to sell cheaply in some store somewhere. Or incorporate into an ugly food-stamp programme Whole Foods I believe has launched an "ugly food" campaign.

[Aimless]

ta-dah: http://www.imperfectproduce.com/home/

and

http://www.hungryharvest.net/

[Aimless]

A closer look: http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaini...auty-standards

[GGT]

For some produce, it's also easy to use visually substandard fruit for e.g. processed foods where the original appearance is irrelevant. Doesn't work for all fruits and veggies, though, since some of them aren't used a lot in such applications. Also possible to use some lower grade produce for e.g. livestock feed, though again that's dependent on some details.

The bigger issue IMO has less to do with wastage at farms but with wastage by stores and by consumers. There's a lot of space here for improvement, especially by consumers (retailers are in a bit of a bind because they have to forecast demand, meaning they typically want some buffer of wastage rather than empty shelves). There are also some fixes here - donating produce to nearby food pantrys/shelters/etc. before they go bad, composting (by consumers) to salvage something from rotten food, etc. But we have to recognize that the US food distribution system is large and complex, and assuring that every paying customer has ready access to a wide variety of foods is not without its overhead. It's astonishing to see how food distribution in the US has changed even in the last few decades - now, you can get most produce year round (with some notable exceptions), even if off-season or non-local produce is pricier and rarely as tasty. This is relatively new for the US, and is not fully replicated even in other parts of the developed world. There are advantages to this, of course, but there are also costs - environmental, financial, etc.

Sorry, but it's not 'relatively new for the US'. This has been going on for decades. (Ever heard of the grape revolt?) Donating farm produce only helps people within a five or ten mile radius....not much help for the urban poor living in a food desert.


Yes minx, the US discards about 30% of its gross agricultural product. By the time it reaches distributors or vendors, that number grows to about 50%. It's sad that a country than could feasibly feed the world, can't manage to feed itself.