I agree about the furniture, electronics and housing part. But food gets spoiled rather rapidly unfortunately. Any effort to give food away to those in need would have to move the goods quick enough.
We have long life food, it still goes into the bin at your local supermarket.
Food insecurity is a capitalism problem. We can supply logistics to anywhere in the world if we want. We have more than enough to feed everyone. We don’t because profit is the motivation not humanity.
Any effort to give food away to those in need would have to move the goods quick enough.
Having volunteered at a local food bank I can confidently say that it is absolutely possible to do. And not even that difficult, assuming there is a genuine will to do it.
Annoyingly, there are still far too many companies in the food supply chain whose mindset is that they would rather trash something than allow it to get into the hands of people who need it without them paying for it.
Stuff was tried and is being tried. For example, in my country, local supermarkets are giving away food that’s close to due date at a discount (mostly it’s 50%). It’s an easy way of buying food for cheap.
Logistically it’s not a nightmare. We already do it, we get crops grown in country A, shipped to country B to be processed before shipping them off to country C to sell. We could easily work out to send less to C and more to D, if we wanted to.
Logistically a nightmare like having a “last chance” area where homeless and poor people can just take it before it gets thrown in the dumpster? Like, literally just allowing a space?
We put more effort into denying homeless people a place to exist than it would take to enable them to exist.
I know when I say “enable” people will immediately conflate that to “encourage”, but we’ve tried for decades to be as ruthless and unkind to homeless people and the numbers haven’t exactly plummeted.
If it is something for the homeless people inside the same city, it’s fine. However, I was thinking about the scenario where food would get transported from the richer parts of the world to the poorer parts of the world. In that case, I do not see the viability of a “last chance” - part of the food would still get spoiled and thrown away, unless you want to feed the poor some spoiled food.
I’d rather see more people educated not to buy too much food in the first place, then direct the remaining to the poor (and even, if possible, produce less in the 1st place. Have fewer cows, less agricultural land and more wild terrain (forests and the likes) if possible).
Oh, for sure transporting food across the world is a disastrously inefficient way to solve it.
I may be wrong about this, but I dont think there are many (if any) food-poor countries that are that way because of a lack of local fertile land.
I don’t think waste and excess are really the issue, but rather misallocation of resources, like you mentioned, raising cattle (or growing coffee/cocoa) over primary foods for profit over basic needs.
I agree about the furniture, electronics and housing part. But food gets spoiled rather rapidly unfortunately. Any effort to give food away to those in need would have to move the goods quick enough.
We have long life food, it still goes into the bin at your local supermarket.
Food insecurity is a capitalism problem. We can supply logistics to anywhere in the world if we want. We have more than enough to feed everyone. We don’t because profit is the motivation not humanity.
Having volunteered at a local food bank I can confidently say that it is absolutely possible to do. And not even that difficult, assuming there is a genuine will to do it.
Annoyingly, there are still far too many companies in the food supply chain whose mindset is that they would rather trash something than allow it to get into the hands of people who need it without them paying for it.
Stuff was tried and is being tried. For example, in my country, local supermarkets are giving away food that’s close to due date at a discount (mostly it’s 50%). It’s an easy way of buying food for cheap.
Logistically it’s a nightmare, but local food offerings in supermarkets and farmers markets are useful in reducing resources usage.
Logistically it’s not a nightmare. We already do it, we get crops grown in country A, shipped to country B to be processed before shipping them off to country C to sell. We could easily work out to send less to C and more to D, if we wanted to.
It’s a capitalist choice to not supply everyone.
Logistically a nightmare like having a “last chance” area where homeless and poor people can just take it before it gets thrown in the dumpster? Like, literally just allowing a space?
We put more effort into denying homeless people a place to exist than it would take to enable them to exist.
I know when I say “enable” people will immediately conflate that to “encourage”, but we’ve tried for decades to be as ruthless and unkind to homeless people and the numbers haven’t exactly plummeted.
If it is something for the homeless people inside the same city, it’s fine. However, I was thinking about the scenario where food would get transported from the richer parts of the world to the poorer parts of the world. In that case, I do not see the viability of a “last chance” - part of the food would still get spoiled and thrown away, unless you want to feed the poor some spoiled food.
I’d rather see more people educated not to buy too much food in the first place, then direct the remaining to the poor (and even, if possible, produce less in the 1st place. Have fewer cows, less agricultural land and more wild terrain (forests and the likes) if possible).
Oh, for sure transporting food across the world is a disastrously inefficient way to solve it.
I may be wrong about this, but I dont think there are many (if any) food-poor countries that are that way because of a lack of local fertile land.
I don’t think waste and excess are really the issue, but rather misallocation of resources, like you mentioned, raising cattle (or growing coffee/cocoa) over primary foods for profit over basic needs.
Something-something-communism, I suppose.
That’s true