{"id":16316,"date":"2016-11-22T11:55:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T16:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/?p=16316"},"modified":"2016-11-22T11:55:19","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T16:55:19","slug":"how-gmos-help-us-reduce-food-waste-its-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wasteadvantagemag.com\/how-gmos-help-us-reduce-food-waste-its-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"How GMOs Help Us Reduce Food Waste & Its Environmental Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"
Producing enough food to meet the needs of a growing global population, while limiting our impact on the environment is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges of our time.\u00a0Reducing food loss and waste\u00a0is and will continue to be a critical part of the solution.<\/p>\n
Today, we produce more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but nearly 800\u00a0million people\u00a0around the world still suffer from hunger. Why? One of the reasons, according to the United Nations\u00a0Food and Agriculture Organization\u00a0(FAO), is that one third of food produced for human consumption globally \u2013 approximately 2.9 trillion pounds per year \u2013 is lost or wasted.<\/p>\n
Food waste also has serious environmental implications beyond just the enormous waste of water, energy, land and other resources that go into producing it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\u00a0estimates that in the United States, food is the single biggest\u00a0category of waste in landfills, where it rots and produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. To put it in perspective,\u00a0approximately 31%, or 133 billion pounds, of the U.S. food supply is wasted annually, contributing to 18% of the total methane emissions that comes from landfills.<\/p>\n
The scope of the problem is enormous, but what many people may not realize is that GM crops can help tip the scales by reducing unnecessary food waste and helping farmers minimize crop loss while conserving resources by allowing them to grow more food using less land. To understand the role that GMOs can play a role in improving food security and sustainability in our global food system, it\u2019s worth taking a closer look at some of the key culprits behind food waste and loss.<\/p>\n