According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the world is reported to waste about 1.3billion tonnes of food annually.
With the recently marked World’s Environment Day, which had the theme; ‘Think, Eat, Save’ an anti-food waste campaign geared to make everyone reduce their food print, this edition of Sunrise focuses on how addressing food wastage can help preserve our environment in Nigeria.
According to John Osonwa, a climate change expert, “the 1.3billion tonnes of food wasted are more than the entire food produced by the entire sub-Sahara region and it is enough to feed the 1billion people in the world, who go to bed hungry every day.” This waste, he warns, is highly devastating to the environment.
Speaking on Channels TV weekend breakfast programme; Sunrise, the climate change expert noted that the bulk of food wasted in Nigeria “is not in the consumption aspect, but in the production aspect.”
Mr Osonwa is joined by Bola Ilori, Special adviser to the Governor, State of Osun on Environment and Anthony Akpan, an environmentalist and President, African Mission for Environment. They all called for attitudinal change such as government policy on food storage and efficient transportation to address post-harvest loses.
They also called for green initiatives such as construction of trees and waste management.
