Waste not, want not

摘要

Mancur olson, an American economist, talked about $100 bills lying on the sidewalk to express the idea of easy gains. The amount of food that is wasted represents a gigantic stack of $ioo bills. Both in rich countries and poor, a staggering 30-50% of all food produced rots away uneaten. According to Josef Schmidhuber of the fao, in Africa the post-harvest waste largely explains why many smallholders are net purchasers of food even though they grow enough for their families to eat. In poor countries most food is wasted on or near the farm. Rats, mice and locusts eat the crops in the field or in storage. Milk and vegetables spoil in transit.