As more people go hungry in Ky and U.S., we still throw too much food away

The world is soon to face unprecedented food insecurity exacerbated by an impending crisis in agricultural and food waste. Already the numbers are staggering. Nearly one in three people in the world (2.37 billion) did not have access to adequate food in 2020. Here at home, Kentucky has the highest rate in the United States of food insecurity among adults aged 50-59, and ranks 15th among the states for food waste. As climate change and global strife increase, those numbers will continue to rise.

We can slow or stop the rise in food insecurity by addressing agricultural and food waste. New techniques and technologies have created an opportunity to address this challenge now, and we must take advantage of it.

Food waste is just that: food that is not eaten, but thrown in the trash, and it comes from a variety of sources, but mostly your own garbage. Whether it’s expired food products or discarded leftovers, food waste accounts for 30-40% of the national food supply, generating over 108 billion pounds of waste each year, or enough food for 130 billion meals.

“When you talk about food waste, it’s not just the actual food going into landfills,” said Commissioner Ryan Quarles, head of the KY Department of Agriculture, speaking at Concordia Lexington event earlier this month, “you’re wasting the labor, you’re wasting the transportation cost, you’re wasting the fuel and sweat equity—everything that goes into taking that crop from the farm gate to somebody’s dinner plate.”

Programs to combat food waste are on the rise. The University of Kentucky, for example, launched a food waste composting plan in the summer of 2019, with the goal of diverting at least as much waste as it sends to landfill. Kentucky is also combating food waste legislatively, with initiatives such as 2017’s HB237, that provided protections from frivolous lawsuits for organizations donating food that would otherwise be wasted. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture also purchases food that would otherwise rot in the fields and donates it to food banks. Approaches like these are critical to reducing the amount of food that goes into landfills instead of hungry people’s stomachs.

Agricultural waste is generated before crops are even food. It includes waste material produced from agricultural operations, including farms, poultry houses, and slaughterhouses. All agricultural operations produce waste. The challenge in remediating that waste is in finding new ways to use those materials and reducing the amount of materials that go into food production in the first place.

Utilizing programs of reuse and recycling, food producers have repurposed waste vegetation into alternative products, such as skincare items and food packaging. These uses allow farms to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in addition to creating new product categories.

Other materials, such as pesticides and fertilizers, can be curtailed—and should be. These materials create harmful runoff that can cause unwanted growth downstream of weeds, algae, and other harmful vegetation, as well as pollute local water sources.

The irony is painful. By producing more food to sustain growing worldwide populations, the sources of water for those populations is soured, causing birth defects and other complications.

Further, as changes to our climate continue to contribute to reduced food supply and inhospitable conditions for growing crops in certain areas of the world, the increase in agricultural production in other parts of the world is contributing to an increase in greenhouse gases and pollution of ecosystems due to an abundance of agricultural waste.

Meanwhile, a crisis of man-made proportions threatens the food supply of an entire region. Recently, the UN Secretary-general warned that the war in Ukraine could soon be the cause of hunger half a world away in regions of the Middle East that are dependent on Ukraine for grain.

As the world continues to struggle with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that our supply chains and existing infrastructure are severely vulnerable to disruption, with none more fragile than our food production ecosystem. Climate change, regional conflicts, and agricultural waste all put strains on the food supply chain.

Now more than ever, it is important to utilize technological solutions to lessen the impacts of stressors on the food supply. Eliminating waste is one step. Using technology to improve waste reduction and repurposing of agricultural waste products will lessen the natural impacts on the food supply chain of increased food production. We must make it imperative to improve the infrastructure of food waste processing, removing these materials from the landfill where they will rot and produce greenhouse gases.

We must also utilize data collection and analysis to curtail the excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers. Smart crops and smarter soil conservation can reduce the need for harsh chemicals, reducing the amount that goes into our food and nearby water supplies. We must make these tools more widely available to the developing world and encourage migration from the use of environment-poisoning chemicals.

We have only one planet, and the number of people it is being tasked with sustaining is ever-increasing. The threat is real and urgent, and the solutions are within our grasp. We must come together to employ them.

Paula Henderson is the Executive Vice President & Chief Sales Officer, Americas at SAS, the leading analytics software company, based in Cary, N.C. She was a featured speaker at the Concordia Lexington Summit.