Producing enough food to meet the needs of a growing global population, while limiting our impact on the environment is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges of our time.聽Reducing food loss and waste聽is and will continue to be a critical part of the solution.
Today, we produce more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but nearly 800聽million people聽around the world still suffer from hunger. Why? One of the reasons, according to the United Nations聽Food and Agriculture Organization聽(FAO), is that one third of food produced for human consumption globally 鈥� approximately 2.9 trillion pounds per year 鈥� is lost or wasted.
Food waste also has serious environmental implications beyond just the enormous waste of water, energy, land and other resources that go into producing it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)聽estimates that in the United States, food is the single biggest聽category of waste in landfills, where it rots and produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. To put it in perspective,聽approximately 31%, or 133 billion pounds, of the U.S. food supply is wasted annually, contributing to 18% of the total methane emissions that comes from landfills.
The scope of the problem is enormous, but what many people may not realize is that GM crops can help tip the scales by reducing unnecessary food waste and helping farmers minimize crop loss while conserving resources by allowing them to grow more food using less land. To understand the role that GMOs can play a role in improving food security and sustainability in our global food system, it鈥檚 worth taking a closer look at some of the key culprits behind food waste and loss.
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