EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
from the book he co-authored, Food
Foolish: The Hidden Connection Between
Food Waste, Hunger, and Climate
Change. Mandyck noted that we have
a ‘hidden’ source of food that can feed
up to four-billion global citizens. From an
environmental standpoint, it can save
the equivalent emissions impact of every
car on every road annually, while saving
enough water to fill the annual water needs
for all of Africa. That hidden source is the
food that we waste — about 30% annually
across the globe.
Mandyck noted that while we grow
enough food to feed about 10-billion
people compared to the current global
population of just over seven billion, we are
successfully feeding only about six billion.
And the challenge of sustainably feeding
the world population by 2050 will only grow
more intense with rising competition for
resources and increased urbanisation. By
2050, 66% of the world’s population will
live in cities. This is a key issue for Vietnam,
where the urbanisation rate is higher than
that of China and India. Broadly, people
are moving further away from their sources
of food, which requires infrastructure
investment to ensure that food supplies can
be successfully transported to them with
minimal waste.
Where does global food loss and waste
occur? Mandyck noted that 63% of global
food wastage occurs at the production
and distribution levels, while 37% occurs at
the consumer level. In Vietnam, as in the
US, the leading item in municipal landfills is
food. And yet, while 30% of our food goes
to waste globally, two-billion people suffer
from micronutrient deficiencies across the
globe, lacking access to proper nutrition to
lead productive lives. That wastage is also a
serious climate problem, leading to 4.4 billion
metric tonnes of CO 2 emissions annually.
Mandyck cited a compelling fact from
the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation (UNFAO): If ranked as a
country, food waste would be the third-
largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions
behind the US and China. Those emissions
also harm our oceans, which absorb one-
third of global CO 2 emissions. The resulting
increase in acidity levels (26% over the past
200 years) threatens a critical source of
food in the coming decades — particularly
for the developing world.
Speakers and delegates networking at the dinner event.
Food is also critically linked to fresh water,
which comprises only 1.3% of the planet’s
overall water. Since agriculture consumes
70% of the world’s fresh water supplies, and
we waste roughly 30% of our food, it is more
than appropriate to note that food waste
is water waste. For perspective, Mandyck
pointed out that the water we waste in food
annually is greater than the annual irrigated
water use of any nation on Earth.
Clearly, food waste is a pressing global
challenge on many fronts, but it must also
be viewed as a tremendous opportunity
for social and environmental progress as
the population surges towards 10 billion
by 2050. As Mandyck advised, to address
this opportunity, we must collaborate —
connecting thought leaders from multiple
sectors who often are working in silos — and
we must use technology to sustainably
extend the world’s food supply to feed
more people. Carrier is working to do both
through the educational and connective
power of the World Cold Chain Summits, as
well as through innovation in refrigeration to
safely deliver more food to more people.
The innovation aspect is key, as it is
natural to assume that an expansion of
refrigeration units around the globe will
increase greenhouse gas emissions. The
benefit of reducing emissions by preventing
food loss and waste through an expanded
and improved cold chain, however,
outweighs the associated increase in
emissions by a factor of 10 to one. As
Mandyck concluded, this proves that an
expanded cold chain throughout the
developing world is an essential strategy in
the quest to sustainably feed the planet,
and it makes him optimistic that we can
uncover this vast, hidden source of food.
Dao The Anh, vice-president of the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS), spoke
about the challenges and opportunities in Vietnam’s cold agricultural value chain.
DAY 1, KEYNOTES
The first session of the day covered three
keynote talks on food loss and waste (FLW)
and agricultural issues in Asia and Vietnam.
Dr Tony Shih-Hsun Hsu, professor at the
Department of Agricultural Economics,
National Taiwan University, started this
Dr Pham Van Tan, deputy director of the Vietnam Institute of Agricultural Engineering and
Post-harvest technology (VIAEP), asking a question.
COLD LINK AFRICA • November/December 2018
Continued on page 19
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
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