EDITOR,
Re. "Chapelle has no appetite for GMO ban," Chief, July 11.
Gordon Neish and Susan Chapelle should not be agreeing on how Genetically Modified Food is going to feed the world. Mother Nature has been genetically modifying food for thousands of years to suit whatever region that food grows in and we have been messing that up.
They should be looking at the fact that 50 per cent of the food in the U.S. and 30 per cent of the food in Canada and Great Britain gets thrown in the garbage. This is for two reasons. The first is that people buy too much and cannot consume what they have before the expiry date. The other reason is that we want food so perfect that a great deal of food that is "not pretty enough" never gets to the shelves in the first place. One study says that in 2010 the United States alone produced 34 million tons of food waste.
Another issue this brings up is the use of water. It is estimated that 550 billion cubic metres of water is wasted growing crops that never make it to market. It is predicted that by 2050 we could be using 10 trillion cubic metres of water in food production. That is 2.5 times the current total human use of fresh water. This will lead to more drastic water shortages around the world.
We should be more focused of changing people's attitude toward handling of food both at a personal level and level of the producers and supermarkets. We should be trying to discourage wasteful practices. How much food did you throw away on your last garbage day?
Trevor Mills
Squamish
