What it takes to feed >8 billion people sustainably
Status quo: A lot of food is wasted. And also, farm animals consume more food than they produce.
background: Land usage is the biggest environmental impact of food production. Forests and other ecosystems are cleared to make room for crop land and pasture. Agriculture has destroyed over 25 times more land than all housing, cities, mining, and other land usage combined.
In simple terms:
Prevent food waste (no matter what foods people eat), and
Use food ingredients that require less land/resources to produce
From a production perspective
Raise fewer farm animals
Don't use crops as animal feed
Because human-edible crops should be used directly as food ingredients instead.
Because human-inedible "animal feed" crops shouldn't be grown in the first place (takes up land that could've either grown human-edible crops, or been rewilded to become natural forest etc.).
Because crop residues (leftover parts of food crops, too fibrous for humans to eat) should be used for growing mushrooms instead (mushrooms are a far more efficient way to convert fiber into protein, compared to raising cows/sheep/goats/etc.).
By doing this, we'll need less crop land to feed the world. Some of that land could then be rewilded.
Rewild pasture to become natural range lands
Animals can be raised there. Fewer than the status quo, of course, since we're eliminating a lot of status-quo feed sources (crops & pasture)
Abolish factory farms
Animals shouldn't be suffering in tiny cages!
Optimize crop yields
In poorer countries, yields are especially bad, due to a lack of fertilizer
In richer countries, yields are already pretty good, but could maybe still be improved more via crop choices or polyculture
Stores and restaurants should NOT throw out their unsold leftovers
Can be put outside in a public leftovers bin instead of trash
As more people are willing to eat leftovers, the amount of excess food goes down in the first place, less food has to be produced to feed the same number of people; less resources used, better for the planet 💬discussionthis well phrased or nah?
Can be given to local charities such as food banks
Note: if every business did this, local charities would likely be overloaded (case in point: in the USA, about 10% of people use food banks sometimes (most not for every meal), while 50% of all food is wasted. That's far more food in the trash than it takes to feed the poor in the same country)
Can be preserved and sent overseas to countries with even more people who need it
Strengthen anti-deforestation policies in every country
Especially to protect rainforests or other old-growth forests
Status quo: The high demand for farmland makes deforestation way too profitable right now, which gives corporate lobbyists way too much power. That's why it's so important to reduce food waste and reduce animal consumption.
Design plant-based food products that are actually sustainable, convenient, and provide all the nutrition people need. 💬discussionTO DO: new page?
From a consumption perspective
People gotta:
Eat more plant-based (specifically food made from high-yielding crops)💬discussionTO DO: link to recipes here? product ideas? soup kitchen designs? or what?
Not waste food
Cultural norms have to shift. For example at public events, it should be "bad etiquette" to take more food than you can finish, and "good etiquette" to offer to finish someone else's food that they can't finish (instead of the other way around).
Normalize having public leftovers bins, completely separate from garbage. The food you don't want to finish, you can put it there, so other people can finish it for you. (...)( If leftovers far exceed what local poor people can eat (highly likely in most suburbs in first-world countries), then middle-class need to normalize eating other people's leftovers too (and not feel shame in doing so) )
Maybe if workplaces allowed workers longer lunch breaks (...)( compared to the USA status quo which is typically 30 minutes. Need to make it at least an hour ), people would actually have time to finish their meals.
Also would help to normalize carrying leftover food back into the job, that "behavior" shouldn't be frowned upon or shamed
More? 💬discussionstuff that still needs a mention:~ people who take one bite of something and decide they don't like it and just throw it out.~ discussion: packaging-to-foodwaste tradeoff examples: taking food to-go, buying smaller serving sizes, canning/pickling/freezing fruits/veg. Make another page for that?~people wasting foods due to fear and "just to be extra safe", why it's fallacious and what can be done instead, and to what extent can/should you (safely)condition your immune system to handle it (but with caveats, never take a chance with botulism for example)
Be willing to eat leftovers (from restaurants, soup kitchens, etc), as massive amounts of them are inevitably produced 💬discussionprovide context?: gotta prepare food ahead of time, not knowing how many people gonna show up, etc
How this can translate into a universal basic food policy
This section has not been filled in yet.💬discussionpoints to cover: National vs international social welfare. Implementations (soup kitchens; giving people ingredients; what else?). Ways to prevent waste. And most importantly, what additional policies would it take to end global hunger? And should we distinguish between "countries where hunger is caused by war" and "countries where hunger is caused by poverty", as the general approach would be very different for each of those categories?
