“Hmm, Scorch,” Felix said, deep in thought, “you are right. As global food production is rising, so is food wastage.”
“Recent reports suggest that 40% of the food goes uneaten when 10% of the world’s population remains hungry!” Scorch said, “Isn’t that a shame?”
“But is there a solution to the problem of food wastage?” Orak said.
“It’s a tricky problem. The world’s population is constantly growing. People need food to eat. So, we need more farmlands to produce more food. But farmland already occupies a lot of land area,” Verum said.
“Plus, the harmful farming methods are producing more food but taking away the nutrients from the soil,” Felix added, “Is there a way to avoid food wastage and produce more food without harming the environment?”
Scorch nodded and said, “Yes, there can be. Do you know that 1.2 billion tonnes of food are wasted every year before it even reaches the shops? Some of it is wasted in the field, while some of it gets wasted while harvesting. Food also gets wasted during transport. It can be due to a lack of technology, labor, storage, etc.
Robots can be used to reduce food wastage. Stephanie Walker is a crop scientist at New Mexico State University. She is experimenting with changing crops to suit the robots’ needs. So, while harvesting the crop, the robots can accurately pick up more without wastage.”
“Nice idea,” Verum said.
Scorch continued, “We can also use agricultural waste. For example, rice produces a lot of straw. Some of it is used as bedding and fodder for animals. But most of it is left to rot or burn. Rice straws can be used to produce biogas. Biogas is produced by fermentation of organic matter such as rice straw.
Many leading agricultural scientists are coming up with different solutions for reducing global food wastage.”
“Hopefully, the wastage will reduce soon!” Felix said and crossed his fingers.