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Sustainable food supply
The discourse around food and agriculture that has dominated
the past 60 years needs to be fundamentally re-thought over the
next few years. New strategies are needed that respond to the
daunting challenges posed by climate change mitigation and ad-
aptation, water scarcity, the decline of petroleum-based energy,
biodiversity loss, and persistent food insecurity in growing popu-
lations. A narrowly-focused ‘seed and fertilizer’ revolution will not
avert recurrent food crises under these conditions; current mod-
els of intensive livestock production will be unaffordable; global
and national food supply chains will need to be restructured in
light of demographic shifts and increasing fuel costs. Future food
production systems will not only depend on,
but must contribute
positively to
, healthy ecosystems and resilient communities. Soils
and vegetation in agricultural landscapes must be restored and
managed in ways that not only achieve food security targets far
more ambitious than those committed to under the Millennium
Development Goals, but also provide watershed services and
wildlife habitat, and sequester greenhouse gases.
pellini and Ceponis, 1984; Harvey, 1978; Kader, 2005). Kan-
tor
et al
(1999) estimated the U.S. total retail, foodservice, and
consumer food losses in 1995 to be 23% of fruits and 25% of
vegetables. In addition, losses could amount to 25–50% of the
total economic value because of reduced quality (Kader, 2005).
Others estimate that up to 50% of the vegetables and fruits
grown end as waste (Henningsson, 2004). Finally, substantial
losses and wastage occur during retail and consumption due
to product deterioration as well as to discarding of excess per-
ishable products and unconsumed food. While the estimates
therefore vary among sources, it is clear that food waste rep-
resents a major potential, especially for use as animal feed,
which, in turn, could release the use of cereals in animal feed
for human consumption.
In 2007, US$148 billion was invested in the renewable energy
market, up 60% from the previous year. Recovering energy
from agricultural wastes is becoming increasingly feasible at
the industrial production level; investments in technology en-
hancement of existing systems and innovation in new waste
management systems is called for to support this expanding
green economy.