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| Danielle Nierenberg |
Danielle Nierenberg of the Worldwatch Institute and Ellen
Gustafson of the 30 Project are launching a new Food Tank:The Food Think Tank
.
It will focus on health issues related to food and
agriculture policies.
“There is no doubt the food system is broken,” they say,
noting that more than one billion people are obese and nearly one billion “go
to bed hungry every night and at least two billion people suffer from
micronutrient deficiencies.”
They say their goal is “to find ways to connect domestic and
global food issues” and to “highlight the need for changing the metrics
regarding how food security and nutrition are measured.”
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| Ellen Gustafson |
Yields and calories are not the only measures of a healthy
food system, they say. “We also need to consider environmental sustainability,
the nutritional quality of food, gender equity and the involvement of yough
when measuring whether a food system is successful.
“We’re trying to bridge the major disconnect between
organizations that are fighting hunger and organizations that are fighting
obesity. The two groups have more in common than they think.
“The truth is we’re all fighting to get people access to
nutritious food, no matter where they are in the world, but we need to be
asking the right questions and developing the right metrics for today’s food
system realities, not yesterday’s,” says Gustafson.
Nierenberg says “agriculture can be the solution to some the
world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.
"We can create state-of-the-art sustainable farming systems
by using a combination of traditional practices that have worked for hundreds
years all over the world with modern eco-friendly technologies.”
Despite 50 years of progress with the Green Revolution, “a large
share of the human family is still chronically without food, reliable income
and access to education,” the two founders say.
“In addition, we waste vast amounts of food – more than one
third or all food worldwide is wasted, or 1.3 billion tonnes annually. In the
developing world, roughly 40 per cent of all food goes to waste as a result of
pests, disease and improper storage.”
The website for Food Tank: The Food Think Tank is at www.FoodTank.org .
