VOA慢速英語:每年大概會有一百萬噸的食物被浪費(fèi)掉

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Hello, and welcome to As It Is from VOA LearningEnglish! I’m Katherine Cole in Washington.

Food waste is a problem around the world, especially inwealthy nations. Studies estimate that between 30 and 40 percent of the food in wealthy countries is thrownaway every year.

At the same time, millions of people in the world do nothave enough to eat. Christopher Cruise will join ustoday to investigate some of these issues.

Later in the show, Karen Leggett will report on whatfarmers in the United States are doing to reduce foodwaste.

But first, here is Christopher Cruise.

More Than One Billion Tons of Food Wasted Each Year

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says more than a billiontons of food is wasted each year. Much of that waste happens in wealthynations, but it happens in developing countries as well.

Even as all this food is being wasted, it is estimated that one billion people areundernourished, and hundreds of millions of people go to sleep hungry eachday.

Danielle Nierenberg is the co-founder and president of Food Tank, anorganization that studies food issues.

“A lot of people in the world -- one out of eight people -- are hungry. And at thesame time we have around 1.5 billion people who are obese. So, that excesshas consequences not just on our waistlines, but on the environment, on ourfood security and a whole range of other factors.”

Ms. Nierenberg says much of the food waste in the developing world iscaused by poor infrastructure, like bad roads and storage areas that are toosmall.

In wealthy nations, people are to blame because they buy more than they caneat. Ms. Nierenberg also blames dates that are printed on food containers. These dates tell buyers and sellers what date the food should be sold or eatenby. She says these dates cause people to throw away food too soon.

VOA spoke with Ms. Nierenberg when she was in Milan, Italy. She wasattending the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition yearly meeting. Officials at the meeting released what they call the Milan Protocol. The document callson international leaders and policymakers to improve food security.

“It not only focuses on food waste, but creating better and more- sustainableagriculture systems, as well as focusing on unhealthy lifestyles and reallyhelping reduce the epidemic of obesity and overweight that is plaguing not justrich countries, but poor countries as well.”

Ms. Nierenberg says the amount of food wasted each year shows there isalready enough food to feed the planet.

“The problem of hunger in the world is not one of not having enough food. Weproduce more than enough food for every man, woman and child to eat everyday. Yet, it’s political reasons. It’s poverty, certainly, that prevents food fromgetting to people who need it the most.”

I’m Christopher Cruise.

You are listening to As It Is from VOA Learning English. I’m Katherine Cole.

A lot of people look at the United States as a rich country. Yet many Americanfarmers are struggling financially. How do they deal with wasted food andunused crops? As Karen Leggett reports, some are using social media tohelp solve the problem.

Social Media Helps Farmers

A CropMobster gleaning, collecting leftover cropsfrom farmers' fields to avoid food waste. (Photoby Gary Cedar)

The United States Department of Agriculture found thatmore than half of the small farms in California do notmake a profit.

One California farm family is using social media in aneffort to change the situation and reduce wasted food. Nick Papadopoulos is general manager of BloomfieldFarms in Sonoma County. It was difficult for him towatch his employees returning from several weekendfarmers’ markets with top quality, unsold produce. Mr.Papadopoulos said he would find boxes of leafy greens,herbs and carrots left in a storage area. The vegetables would go bad beforethe next market day.

As a result, Mr. Papadopoulos came up with a plan to offer the food at a lowprice by advertising it on the farm’s Facebook status page on Sunday nights.

“We’re going to put ‘Breaking news! Crop mob. Two pallets of BloomfieldFarms’ organic veggies, $150 dollars per pallet.’”

The deals were open to anyone using the social media website. One week,several homeowners in a neighboring community bought the vegetables. Another week, the buyers were a group of friends.

Nick Papadopoulos began using social media after he went to work on a farmbelonging to his wife’s father. One night he began thinking about the issue ofwasted food when he could not find a place to donate 32 cases of organicbroccoli. He ended up giving some of the food to chickens and using the restto make fertilizer.

“I don’t believe we should let it go to waste. I believe we should share it,donate it, whatever it takes to get it out there, and if possible - as farmers - wewould like to recover a small portion of our cost.”

After his success of using Facebook, Mr. Papadopoulos helped to set up awebsite called cropmobster.com. It is a place where people involved withfood production, feeding the hungry and those who want to buy locally-grownfood can find surplus produce.

Have you ever used the Internet to buy or sell crops? If so, tell us about yourexperience. You can leave a message on our Facebook page or visit ourwebsite, learningenglish.voanews.com.

I’m Karen Leggett.

When you visit our website, click on “Contact Us” to tell us what you want tohear about on a future show. You can also read, listen to and download ourprograms. You will also find podcasts, captioned videos and lessons to testyour English skills.

That’s our program for today. I'm Katherine Cole. Thanks so much forlistening! Join us again tomorrow for another As It Is from VOA LearningEnglish.

And, for the latest world news, be sure to listen to VOA at the top of the hour,Universal Time.