50% of all the food that is grown worldwide is wasted. An almost equal percent of agricultural water is squandered. Stunning, but true. Virtually half of both precious commodities are lost between farm and fork. In the US that amounts to over $48B of food and ten trillion gallons of water.

       According to a policy brief from a group of global organizations including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, we have plenty of food and water to take care of everyone on the planet. The problem is that we aren’t taking good care of these resources.

        Waste occurs at every step in the food chain. In developing countries, 15-35% of food goes bad in the field, and another 10-15% is lost during processing and transportation. In the US, much less waste occurs on farms, but more occurs at retail, restaurants, and homes.

       Recent news stories have centered on how to produce more food and allocate scarce water. Forward thinkers are focused on ways to better use what we already have. For instance, WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) is working with manufacturers and retailers to reinvent everything from storage systems, to package sizes, to labeling to reduce waste.

       Now those headlines and articles about “money shortages?” I’ll let you decide if they could be resolved by reducing “wastage” too.