Oliver Asks for More

Food, Food, Food

Even the greatest civilization is three-days meals from crumbling into pieces. This statement is especially true in today's highly urbanized western society. Our food are not grown out on our back yard. Many of them are not even coming from this continent. We go to a supermarket around the block, pick the best looking carrot from a thousand samey-looking ones. There are too much food! Way too much! We have so much food that farmers have to dump them into the ocean because the food produce worth less than the diesels needed to deliver them to the nearest mall. Hunger only exists as a concept when you sit pantlessly on your coach waiting for the pizza delivery guy to arrive. And then you ate two pieces of that pizza and leave it in your fridge for 5 days before you throw it away. We city dwellers are spoiled by our infinite food supply we forget history of humanity is basically a endless battle of fighting against starvation. What happens if we run out of food? Starve the city of Sydney for three days, and you will have yourself a hellish riot straight out of a 90s zombie movie.    

According to Jenny Donovan in Architecture, Planning and Food, 25%-50% of Australian food produce are thrown away because they can't reach the size/weight regulation. Half of our potatoes are dumped in the bin because they don't look quite as good! They don't taste any different, they are not poisonous or anything. They just are not as good looking. Well, bugger off then, into the dump you go. 

In fact, this manner of unsustainable thinking  happens in almost every step of the entire food supply system. Food production, processing and transport, marketing and retailing, and waste disposal. 

Firstly, we are using large amount of argochemicals in our farms. Although it is necessary in order to maintain a health production to feed the population, we are eventually trading fossil fuels for food production because argochemicals are products of oil industry.

Second, like I mentioned, the wastage of fresh produce in processing is enormous. Various of regulations and food related laws on one hand protect consumer's health and food qualities, on the other hand cause large amount of 'under-qualified' produce go to waste.

Marketing of food is not always well organized in an urban environment. There are certain areas in the city turns into 'food desert' because the lack of access to food shops and markets. Also, lots of local based shops can not survive in suburban context because there are just not enough customers in walking distance. 

Lastly, the disposal of food scraps and unsold goods are mostly going to landfill and slowly degenerated into methane to haunt our global climate even more. There has been ways to collect methane gas, a highly significant Green House Gas. However, they are not efficient enough just yet to be considered as a long term solution.

We all eat. And thanks to the wonderful gifts granted by industrial farming, at least in Australia and most developing region, we all have enough to eat. But when we are sitting around the dinner table, praise the lord for putting food on your table, lets not forget the ghost of famine is still haunting one third of human population, and it is crawling under the dark corner in the metropolis, waiting for a moment to strike.

Reference: 

Donovan, Jenny. Architecture, planning and food [online]. Environment Design Guide, No. 73, Jul 2012: 1-11. Availability:<http://search.informit.com.au.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=659056435607544;res=IELHSS> ISSN: 1442-5017. [cited 05 Mar 16].

Image credit: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-madlock/get-smart-commune-and-gro_b_8869886.html

http://cafnrnews.com/2012/03/making-black-gold/dumping-food-waste1/