Perdue Hosts Food Waste Roundtable

There are many groups, businesses and individuals working to reduce the estimated 30%-40% of food that’s wasted here in the United States.  But, what has to be done for major progress to be made nationally?

“It has to be a unified a unified effort with everyone doing their own piece, but how do you build a team spirit over the overall issue?”

In an effort to get that team together, Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue brought together lawmakers, business people, representatives of foodbanks, farmers and others for a food waste roundtable.  Studies show most of the waste happens at the consumer level, but some of it occurs at the farm.

The main reasons for waste: 1.) farmers can’t get enough workers to harvest the entire crop 2.) or some of the produce may not be “perfect” enough for market.  An unfortunately in both cases perfectly good food is left to rot.

Perdue’s question to the roundtable.

“Do we need tax credits or maybe monetary policy there that would incentives farmers to harvest all of that?”

Experts noted that even if you offered those incentives, you’d still need workers to harvest and a system to transport the produce to those that need it.

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