Ilonggos urged to reduce food wastage; By: Elsa S. Subong ILOILO CITY, July 2 (PIA) – In today’s food system, there is inherent food wastage which people should avoid, according to the Department of Environment and natural Resources chief here. DENR Regional Executive Director Adeluisa Siapno said in a press release that there is large amount of wastage being incurred from harvesting, manufacturing, packaging, shipping and merchandising the food that people consume daily. “We must all exert effort also to conserve during the preparation and consumption as this is not only an environment issue,” Siapno said. Siapno said it is also about the ethical and economic issue associated with the enormous waste of energy, land, water, and other hard work exerted in producing food. The latest food consumption survey by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI-DOST) showed that the biggest food waste among Filipinos is rice at 16 grams per person per day. FNRI said this translates to about 1,200 metric tons of wasted rice per day, valued at P14.4 million, an amount enough to feed more that 200,000 street children nationwide for a few days. For DENR Secretary Ramon Paje, theirs is a continuous campaign for people to reduce “foodprint” by patronizing food produced in an environmentally sound manner. “This means, food grown organically or packaged using recycled materials to lessen garbage thrown into the dumpsite or landfills,” Paje said. DENR said that since organic foods and locally-produced products require less emission-producing, handling and transport to bring them to people’s tables, eating them is, therefore, more environment-friendly. Meanwhile, in observance of World Environment Day last month, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) launched the theme “Think. Eat. Save. Reduce Your Foodprint.” This is in its bid for worldwide support to provide food for humanity. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that one way to narrow the hunger-gap is to address the massive loss and wastage in today’s food system. (JCM/ESS/PIA-Iloilo)
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 06:05:17 +0000