The global plate

How much food is actually produced and how much is consumed?

Below there is an extract from Global Eating Disorder, which explains it all.

 

From farm to table

Item	Note	kcal/per capita/day
Gross crop production per capita		+5600
Used as seed	1	-130
Waste on farm & post-harvest	2	-560
Used as feed	3	-1543
From livestock products	4	+510
Biofuel	5	-480
Other industrial uses	6	-200
Waste in food processing	7	-400
Food from other sources		+50
Total food available		2,847

Sources:

1. Calculated from FAOSTAT data for the main 20 crops + 10%for the rest of the corps.

2. Based on FAO (2001), Global Food Losses and Food Waste, probably an overestimate.

3. Calculated from FAOSTAT data for the main 20 crops + 20%of the rest of the crops.

4. FAOSTAT. Some of this is from grazing and some comes from cultivated feed.

5. Calculated from United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) data on amounts of biofuel produced and the raw materials used. No calories are counted for the feed value of residual products as they come into the food system via livestock products.

6. Guesstimate, bio-plastics, starch, medicines, cosmetics and fiber.

7. Based on FAO (2011), Global Food Losses and Food Waste.

8. Wild fish, game and other wild collection. Own estimate and FAOSTAT

This coincides more or less with FAO data on food availability 2009. The figure is an average for all individuals on the planet, including children and the elderly. Small children don’t eat much and old people also eat considerably less. By and large, even with a wastage rate of ten percent, there is more than enough food to feed the global population, if it was evenly distributed. Which it is not. But if food were evenly distributed, what would the global menu look like? The table below gives an idea. People consume some 1.8 kg of food per day (675kg per year). Looking at calories in our food, 46% came from cereals (with rice and wheat contributing 19% each), 18% from animal products, 10% from vegetable oils, 8% from sugar, 5% from root crops, 3% respec­tively from vegetables, fruits and alcoholic beverages and 5% from other (fish & sea food, algae and pulses). In terms of protein and fat, animal products play a much bigger role, contributing 45% of all dietary fat and 39% of all protein.

Global food supply per capita per day 2009

	grams	kcal	%kcal
Wheat	181	532	19%
Rice	146	536	19%
Maize	47	141	5%
Cereals, other	28	82	3%
Starchy roots (potatoes, cassava etc.)	167	136	5%
Sugar and sweeteners	64	224	8%
Beans and peas	18	62	2%
Soybeans and groundnuts	20	56	2%
Vegetable oils	32	277	10%
Vegetables	361	87	3%
Fruits	200	92	3%
Alcoholic beverages	98	67	2%
Meat	115	230	8%
Animal fats	9	60	2%
Milk	239	134	5%
Fish, seafood	51	33	1%
Other	82	100	3%
Total	1,857	2,849	100%

Source: FAOSTAT,

To make this more vivid let’s try to make a day’s diet out of it. Perhaps it would look like this:

• For breakfast you drink tea or coffee with sugar, eat three slices of bread (or cereal based porridge) upon which you use a vegetable oil based margarine and a sweet fruit-based condiment.
• For lunch you eat tortillas, and two potatoes (or yams, cassava or sweet potatoes), with tomatoes and onions fried in vegetable oil. Once a week you also have a fish.
• For dinner you eat boiled rice with a stew of beans, cabbage and a small piece of meat. You round off with a banana, an apple, an orange or half a mango.
• In the evening you drink a very small soda or a beer and snack on roasted groundnuts or soybeans.

But the average food supply varies greatly geographically. The food supply per Indian is 2,321 kcal while it is 3,688 for the average Ameri­can. The average Indian gets almost two thirds of their calories from cereals, pulses and root crops while these crops only contribute a quarter of the calories of the American. Sugar and fats contribute almost 40% of the American’s calories but just 21% of the Indian’s. Animal products, including fish, make up 28% of the calorie supply of an American but only 9% for the average Indian. Clearly, the agriculture systems that produce those two diets are very different and the ecological footprints of the diets are also very different.