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The IMechE produced a report on the wastage of food at the turn of the year that attracted attention in the media, but what was its impact in Westminster? Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not was covered extensively on the BBC, including being the lead story on the Breakfast programme, and appeared on news bulletins throughout the day. The report also made it to the front page of The Daily Mail.
According to the IMechE’s media department, there were 860 clips featuring the report, with a potential circulation of more than 500 million. Coverage was recorded in more than 60 countries. “The report also generated much discussion and comment within government, both here and abroad,” said the institution. MPs and other dignitaries were invited to discuss the report’s findings over dinner. And IMechE president Isobel Pollock travelled to the United Nations in New York to give evidence on the report.
One of the politicians involved in all of this was the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Chidgey, a chartered mechanical engineer and a specialist on international development. Given that much of the IMechE report focused on improving food harvesting and transport infrastructure in developing countries so that less food is wasted, he found it of interest. Also, in the wake of Pollock’s visit to New York, Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme, visited Westminster and met MPs and members of the House of Lords.
Chidgey said: “The UN sees this is an important area where they can engage with the private sector to reduce food waste. It doesn’t take rocket science in terms of engineering. Sometimes it’s something as simple as providing an effective dry store.
“When you’re working in developing countries where malnutrition, food scarcity and hunger among the poor are the prime concerns, you don’t need to be looking at fancy engineering solutions. You need manageable and effective solutions that can be provided with the human resources to make them self-sustaining.”
Cousin is particularly interested in working with the international extractive industries such as the giants in mining and oil and gas to reduce food wastage as part of the UN food programme, said Chidgey. “She was very interested in how you work with such industries for a reduction in poverty, a reduction in food shortages, and a reduction in malnutrition,” he added. The storage, transport and processing of crops in the developing world also needed to be addressed.
Greater involvement of and control by women in the agricultural process could increase production of crops significantly, Chidgey claimed. Women are currently excluded from the industry in some countries. “If we concentrated as much on cultural restrictions as we do on physical restrictions we’d probably get a better return,” he said.
“Most of the countries I know best are in Africa and were previously colonies, so they have gone through cycles of being highly developed cash-crop economies which deteriorated in the immediate post-colonial period. With decreasing levels of conflict, industry and investors are now more ready to look at Africa. Things are changing.”