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First Posted: 4/12/2013

American households, according to a speaker at the American Chemical Society’s meeting in New Orleans, throw away 40 percent of the food they buy.

Globally, the story is much the same. A study by the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers found that somewhere between 30 percent and 50 percent of all the food grown in the world never makes it to the plate. Up to 2 billion tons of food is devoured or tainted by rats, mice and other pests, or perishes in granaries, or is discarded by buyers because it doesn’t meet supermarket standards.

That so much food is grown, distributed and sold every day is a reminder that free markets can effectively deliver whatever people can afford. That so much is shamefully wasted when so many people go hungry is a reminder that free markets do not and cannot trade in what George Orwell, in the hungry depression years, called justice and common decency.

But food security is not just a problem for the poor. It will become, increasingly, a problem for everybody. That is because of population growth. Every day, there are another 220,000 mouths to feed. By 2030, the world will be home to eight billion people; by 2050, there will be nine billion.

There is only so much you can expect from photosynthesis. That per capita income for hundreds of millions of once-poor people in Asia and Africa has risen is good news. The bad news is that the world appetite for meat is also rising, which pushes up the price and reduces the supply of wheat, rice, maize and other staples for the poorer communities.

Huge tracts of the planet are already experiencing water stress. The oil that fuels the world’s tractors is a finite resource; cheap phosphorus fertilizer cannot be guaranteed indefinitely.

According to the U.N., 2013 could turn out very badly. Food, either wasted on the plate or withered in the soil, is a problem for the world’s politicians, and one that becomes increasingly ominous, everywhere, with each successive harvest.

The Guardian of London