"Recycling" Food Waste

There are moves afoot to begin uplifting food waste separately from other waste to allow energy to be extracted through the use of anaerobic digestion. On the face of it this sounds like a very good idea – not only does it extract energy but the residual waste can be used as a commercial grade compost, unlike the low grade compost extracted from Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) systems. This would see large reductions in material going to landfill.

My concern is that large scale adoption of this technology will encourage more waste or, at best, stop any further reduction in the food we waste.

Here is why.

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Change the World Wednesday - 23rd May 2012 - Packed Lunches

This weeks Change the World Wednesday Challenge is to make a waste free lunch.

Five mornings a week I make up packed lunches for myself and our two children hence this challenge is particularly appropriate.  In terms of packaging, this is the most wasteful meal of our day and it can only be marked as a "fail - must try harder".

But I'll start with the good bits. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to packed lunches: the cornerstone of any packed lunch should be a piece. It can be a cheese piece, jeely piece, cheese and jeely piece or any other type of piece: egg, ham, tuna, banana - anything that fits between two slices of bread. We do well here with home made bread. It has flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt. No preservatives, no additives, no packaging (the flour comes in biodegradable paper bags) and no transportation.

So far so good but when all the additional things are included we start to go down hill. The children take refillable water bottles to school for during the day but single use cartons of fruit juice for lunch. You know the type: plasticy cardboard cartons with a plastic straw in a polythene wrapper glued to the side. Then there are crisps, raisins or other dried fruit, pots of yoghurt and cereal bars or biscuits - not everything every day but two or three from the list. Almost all have packaging.

We have tried buying in bulk then filling reusable containers but the kids keep losing lids or breaking the containers. Understandably, they have more important things to do at lunch time, like playing hopscotch, skipping or football, rather than putting their lunch things away properly.

I look forward to reading other posts on this challenge in the hope of gaining inspiration.

Related links: If you don't know what a jeelly piece is, this link may help:

Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?

I'd like to think that it can, but I have often wondered wether organic agriculture could feed everyone or whether we need more intensive agriculture. There are many environmental benefits to organic methods including reduced use of herbicides and pesticides such as neonicotinoids which are implicated in the decline of bee numbers. Another benefit is the greater diversity of vegetable varieties also associated with organic farming. This is for two reasons: to use varieties with greater natural resistance to pests and to use more flavoursome varieties to differentiate from non-organic produce.

 A recent study of studies of yield from organic methods compared with so-called conventional methods has recently been published in Nature and reported here by the BBC. From the BBC report:

The headline conclusion is pretty unequivocal; across the board, organic farming produces lower yields than conventional methods, by about 25%. For fruit, the difference is marginal, just a few percent. But for vegetables, organic yields are about 33% down on conventional, with barley and wheat a little lower still.

 A lower yield from organic farming over a given area of land is not surprising really; good organic farming would have a reduced crop growing area as there would be hedgerows and possibly field boundaries that are unplanted. Then the reduced fertiliser use can reduce yield and varieties bred for pest resistance may not be optimised for yield. Another factor affecting yields identified in the report was irrigation, with non-organic methods using more water. In many parts of the world, including southern Britain the future may not slow such profligate water use, thus closing the gap. In fact a study undertaken by the Rodale Institute showed that organic growing produced better yields of corn in drought years. Another review of the Nature report in the Guardian notes established organic production using the best organic practices and with the right natural conditions can be as productive as conventional methods.

But this still doesn't answer the question, can we feed the world organically?

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