FAO:World is facing food wastes crisis

BANGKOK, November 14 (TNA) - The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) says that the world is facing a food wastes crisis, as over 1.3 billion tonnes of food, worth more than 32 trillion baht, has been thrown away every year. Rosa Esrore, an FAO representative in Bangkok, told a seminar of the alarming information on Friday, indicating that the massive amount of food wastes could, otherwise, feed all those starving in the world. Esrore reported that there has been also a large amount of food wasted before reaching global consumers due to non-systematic management, as well as oversupply of food products and improper consumption habits. The FAO representative stressed if some 25 per cent of the existing amount of wasted food worldwide was reduced, there would be sufficient food supply to feed over 870 million starving people in the world currently. In case of Thailand, Sakol Thinakul, Deputy Director General of the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, told the seminar, held in the capital, that there has been increasing amount of garbage in the country, recorded at over 26 million tonnes in 2013, or each Thai produced about one kilogramme of wastes daily, most of which, or about 64 per cent of them, were food wastes while some 3 per cent were hazardous and 30 per cent were recyclable. According to the senior Thai official, only about 70 per cent of the country's overall garbage can be destroyed, resulting in the leftover wastes to have become sources of methane gas, which causes the problem of global warming or climate change. The senior official noted that the Thai government has included proper garbage management plan in the national agenda for the sake of handling the problem more efficiently. (TNA)