US: Food Security

Image: A street in St. Martin after Hurricane Irma. Residents spoke of a disintegration in law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages. Credit Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

nytimes.com - Azam Ahmed and Kirk Semple - September 10th 2017

At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.

They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.

But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.

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cnn.com - by Thom Patterson - June 15, 2017

 . . . The United States exports more food than any other country in the world. So why do families with children have trouble getting enough food in such a prosperous nation?

"The non-politcal answer . . . is greed and government . . . There's too many government health restrictions that force restaurants to throw away food" instead of donating it to the needy. "It's also greed: We're not helping our neighbors."

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washingtonpost.com

The statistics are sobering: In the United States, 63 million tons of food are wasted every year.  Food waste accounts for 21 percent of all fresh water used in the United States, and takes up 21 percent of landfill volume.  Waste happens at every stage of the supply chain between farm and table.

With this in mind, Sub-Zero launched Fresh Food Matters, an initiative to empower people to think fresh about the food they eat - and to educate and inspire them on food’s far-reaching impact.  The first article in this series explored some of these causes in depth, and we look here at effective, actionable solutions.

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CLICK HERE - Food Cowboy

CLICK HERE - Zero Percent

CLICK HERE - Fresh Food Matters

The world is facing its largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, the United Nations says, issuing a plea for help to avoid "a catastrophe", BBC News reports.

CLICK HERE - UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, STEPHEN O’BRIEN - STATEMENT TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL ON MISSIONS TO YEMEN, SOUTH SUDAN, SOMALIA AND KENYA AND AN UPDATE ON THE OSLO CONFERENCE ON NIGERIA AND THE LAKE CHAD REGION - March 10, 2017 (6 page .PDF file)

bbc.com - March 11, 2017

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said that more than 20 million people faced the threat of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria.

Unicef has already warned 1.4m children could starve to death this year.

Mr O'Brien said $4.4bn (£3.6bn) was needed by July to avert disaster.

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