FAILED ECONOMICS
Always More, Never Less
Our love affair with wastage and overconsumption
There are two world problems that boggle me. Poverty and food wastage. And while poverty is a hellish chimera of its own, how is it still possible that we cry hunger and famine when on the same platform we scream food wastage? Never adds up. Never figured out.
The United Nations reported that as of November 2022, the world population reached eight billion (other reports may vary). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) the food that we lose and waste annually could feed 1.26 billion hungry people every year.
Here in Malaysia, in the first six months of COVID-19 pandemic crisis, food security, scarcity, and deterioration of nutrition afflicted many families below the poverty line (40 percent). The situation became dire to the point the citizens got together and came up with their own rescue model. Destitute families and old folks living alone and remote, tied a white piece of cloth outside their gate to signify they were out of food.
Seeing the white cloth, neighbors and good Samaritans would bring donated provisions to their doorstep without making any contact. It became an unspoken language of communal support, engagement, and survival.
The white flag movement, as it became known, was also symbolic as an anti-government effort to show the local leaders how they were becoming increasingly irrelevant and easily replaced. With a weak Prime Minister at the time holding power, the cabinet’s myopic vision of promoting vaccines was falling on deaf ears as they neglected to see how food was close to non-existent in many rural and deep-seated pockets of urban areas.
Next on the people’s agenda was to hit the streets and protest. Surviving hunger was more crucial than a deadly virus, it was worth the risk of infection, people said.
It took the local government less than a week to buck up and get into action. But again, it doesn’t solve the equation of throwing out good food when there are many hungry mouths to feed. Where and how do they mismatch and disconnect?
According to FAO’s latest report on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI), the number of people affected by hunger rose to as much as 828 million in 2021. Also recorded by FAO, around 14 percent of the world’s food (valued at $400 billion per year) continues to be lost after it is harvested and before it reaches the shops. UNEP’s Food Waste Index Report shows that a further 17 percent of our food ends up being wasted in retail and by consumers, particularly in households.
In short, humans are wasteful, we overconsume, yet we are pushing for more production.
FACT: One third of the world’s food is squandered, that is 1.3 billion tons of wasted food at approximately 1 trillion USD costs. This amount can feed 3 billion people. Let this be written in bold and pasted on our kitchen wall.
So it’s not like we can’t feed the poor and tackle hunger, we just need to stop the wasteful habit.
Eons ago, when I was a lecturer at a private local university, the students would complain about being strapped for money and the increasingly high cost of living. Yet, without fail was their daily order of caramel lattes and frappuccino from the hipster cafes. I allowed them to bring food and beverage into class and the average $4–5 fancy coffee was their staple. I couldn’t afford such a choice even if I wanted to.
The same when discussing campaigns on anti-plastic and polluted landfills, yet without fail the Boba tea business tripled within two years in the country. It continues to be popular, together with the use of plastic straws and fancy cups. Always more, never less.
You want to save the planet but you still want to be hip and trendy. Seems like an impossible wish that defies logic and puts us in constant denial.
A friend of mine, Jothi, works for the local council in Penang. In the evenings and on weekends, she volunteers to deliver food to the needy. On her own initiative, she was able to orchestrate a unique network where throughout the island, several restaurant owners agreed to pack leftovers for distribution instead of being discarded. It is a project Jothi is proud of and has been doing on the side for four years.
Here in Southeast Asia, food is a blessing, a reward, and a gift. To waste food is identical to pouring your fortune of gold into the drain. Not only is it blatantly stupid and sinfully wasteful, it brings bad karma. But equally sinful is overconsumption. In microeconomics, it’s where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater than their marginal utility.
I recently got a call from Jothi who sounded upset. She needed my help to design a solution to a new problem with her food distribution.
“People are asking for food, and restaurants have increased volume, but we discovered the food packages discarded and abandoned. I’m upset because they asked for extra for their families, only to throw them away. There are always people who are in serious need of food yet here we — among the destitute — are acting wastefully. How can I not be disappointed?”
Greed, callousness, again overconsumption.
At first, we thought we had succeeded by heat mapping locations of need. Now, we have a behavioral problem. A combination of ignorant and entitled attitudes towards welfare and charity.
At a closer inspection and deeper study, however, I discovered it had to do with pride.
In 2018 I was requested to assist a local member of Parliament who had a portfolio in helping poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods. These are areas within the city centers that are crippled with poverty-induced crime, teen pregnancy, homelessness, and food scarcity.
I was familiar with the politician as I had taught her son a few years before. A polite boy but a product of a broken family and a high-profile and extremely busy mother. A mother who had been arrested and imprisoned for her protests against labor injustice and violations. She was an exceptional woman and I was grateful she allowed a handful of my journalism students to experience a day in her prolific life helping marginalized communities.
Every Friday she and her team managed food banks in impoverished neighborhoods. Local and high-end supermarkets would contribute fresh produce and dry goods namely rice and cooking oil and supplies of clean bottled drinking water.
My students were eager to assist but they were in for a surprise. That day they learned the psychosocial aspects of giving and receiving.
You see, too often we assume giving and receiving are easy as they sound. We assume charity is welcomed with open arms by those in need. We assume people in pressed conditions would be grateful for a visit and for the helping hand you’re extending. You’d think with every Hello armed with a bag of needed supplies is an open door with a smile. You’d think with every Thank you is a reciprocation of You’re welcome.
That was not the case which my well-intentioned students witnessed and experienced first-hand.
My students observed how the food supply arrived and was coordinated and arranged for collection, the local folks would leave their homes and flock to the food bank area. However, while three or four families would collect and thank us graciously, many just stood there looking around, acting like they were there to watch us work. They weren’t smiling, some looked grumpy. Many looked distant and away. But they stood there. Smoking, talking to each other. Some with families, others alone.
My students were puzzled.
“Miss Natasha, why are they just standing there?” One of my students whispered. I could sense her anxiety.
“It’s pride, dear. They feel ashamed. You’re standing here doing your job. But to them, you’re witnessing a state they don’t want others to see. For them to collect food from you, someone who is much younger, less experienced in life, dressed and smiling the way you are, hurts them inside as it reflects on the social divide realities we’re in. These are fathers, mothers, and grandparents. Some had jobs once, homes too, and some are with addiction problems. You think they see you and don’t feel anything? Just as you are standing feeling sad and sorry for them, they can see and feel that dear. That’s what’s happening.”
“So what do we do, Miss?”
“Well, stop staring at them. We then put the items nicely and divide them equally and we step aside to where they can’t see us watching them.”
And true enough, the moment we walked away, the folks came and collected their goods and went back into their homes. No hello, no thank you, no eye contact, no words, just quietly come and quietly go. Like it never happened. You did your part, they did theirs.
This was not a social media moment worthy of Instagram or to be shared on Facebook. This was a duty and a transaction of humanity.
We were at the low-cost flats (provided by the government) in what is known as a black area, a term used to connote at night, it was not safe due to its high crime rate.
“Miss, can we go up to see the flats and take photos? We can also bring the food stuff up to those who haven’t come down.” One of my students asked.
I love how earnest, genuine and kind-hearted my students were. I feel proud of them for thinking in such a way.
“In places like this, we are not advised to do that. Upstairs are where the needles are littered all over and the druggies are. It’s not safe for you. It’s also a protocol. We are advised to not go without supervision and the authorities. Also, let’s tone down the tourist mindset and the need to take photographs when doing work like this. Remember, these are people and you’re practically walking through their turf, their home, their safe zone. Be respectful by seeing the place for what it is and not how it is broken. This is reality. Just not what you’re used to. That’s why I brought you here.”
We can offer food to feed the hungry, they can accept and throw the food away. We can choose to prioritize fancy lattes in our grande cups and walk past the homeless sipping through our metal straws thinking we are helping the environment.
For as long as one end of the planet is overconsuming and discarding good food, another end will be too hungry to receive. The ones in the middle — the majority of the population — will continue to not learn a single damn thing about wastage.
That’s a reality I have become too tired to teach my students. Or anyone. It should be on us, individually.
Recommended reads in relation to social ethics and its implications:
Some People Can’t Afford Food — While Others Are Giving Away What They Don’t Need by Paul Walker
Let’s Talk About Life Coaches By Chris Thompson
Do Refugees Benefit From UN Research Studies? By Georgie Nink
How I Started A Café To Discuss Death By Masatoshi Shoji
