QUALITALY 142

October/November 2024 V MAGAZINE reach the table or are thrown away by consumers. Practically ⅓ of the world’s entire agricultural production. And the most disconcerting thing is that 80% would still be qualitatively consumable. If we put this figure next to the appalling numbers of the starving, at the very least we should be outraged. If that were not chilling enough, one might consider the devastating impact on the environment: it has been calculated that, if it were a state, food waste would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (3.3 billion tonnes of CO2). Dulcis in fundo, projections to 2050 seem to draw a kind of dystopian nightmare: we will waste more than twice as much as we do today. What can we do? It is time to be creative and practical. We have two problems, loss and waste, which require two different solutions: a techno-scientific one and an educational-cultural one. Let us start with the issue of food loss along the agri-food chain. Consider, for example, food that spoils due to exposure to various microbes or ends up devoured by insects that thrive in storage silos. There is no need to imagine science fiction scenarios. We have had the technology to prevent this loss along the production cycle for years now: they are called biosensors, synthesised in the laboratory using nanoparticles, capable of monitoring food quality, collecting and sending huge masses of data to information systems that, in turn, process them at speeds humanly unthinkable, thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence. It is a booming and very promising business. But of course, this is only one side of the coin. The other side, which is ethically crucial, goes hand in hand with asking to what extent it is possible to ensure that biosensors are safe for our health and the environment. The fact is that they are not simply genetically modified organisms. They are genetically engineered ‘from scratch’ in the laboratory, so they are biological entities that do not exist in nature. Predicting how nanoparticles will behave, and how they will evolve once released into the environment, is serious business. Then there is an underlying doubt, which I feel should not be overlooked: are we sure that this ‘beneficent’ version of bio- technological capitalism, capable of putting on the anti-waste gloves of environmental and social respect, is really less exploitative, or has it simply found a polite way to continue devouring the planet, by asking permission? Now the issue of waste. Although food losses occur at every point along the production chain, it is now well established that end consumers play their own considerable part. However, there are those who consider it ineffective to continue insisting on the undeniable result of individual behaviour, if we compare it, at macro level, to the much greater responsibility of institutions. It’s better, then, to act for systemic change, rather than rhetorically fixate on the micro choices, however wrong, of those who sit at the table. The truth, however, is that these choices matter. To be fair, it is precisely the households in industrialised countries that waste the most. The question is to understand why so much food is thrown away. And it is by no means simple. The most striking element is, perhaps, the frequent gap between attitudes, explicit intentions to waste less, even a sense of guilt towards the starving, and actual behaviour. If, however, we go into detail, it soon becomes clear that there would be plenty of scope for educational and awareness- raising intervention: from learning how to shop, how to cook, how to store and how to manage leftovers. And perhaps understand well that there is a difference between the label ‘use by’ and ‘best before’: it may sound strange, but many people do not know that the former concerns the wholesomeness of food, the latter its quality. To finish with, the most ethically embarrassing aspect, namely the fact that the sharing of surplus food is still incredibly poor: while great efforts are being made on how to facilitate the redistribution of unsold food, households still do too little. So, it is clear that the fight against waste is not just a matter of individually correct behaviour; it coincides with the whole ballgame of the common good. Far from being a romantic platitude. It forces us to closely question our eating habits, contrary to the well-known common-sense adage that, of one’s tastes, one should be kept quiet. Talking about it, however, forces us to question the current food production system and its sustainability. And this, again, is another side of the ethical problem related to food. WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE? In Marxian terms, so far the standard industrialist approach seems to have prevailed, whereby land has worth as long as it can be translated into its monetary equivalent and is therefore exchangeable. Wendell Berry was already very clear about the consequences, twenty years ago: it is as if agriculture had become a part of mining. You extract all you can and then, once the resources are exhausted, you move on to the next deposit/piece of land. As if one could go on squeezing the planet indefinitely, while everyone knows by now that the food system’s dependence on non-renewable energy sources, such as fossil fuels, besides polluting, will not last forever. Addressing the issue of the impact of agro-industry on the environment and, on the flip side, the consequences of environmental degradation on food production, seems to configure - at least at first glance - a typical symmetrical dilemma between profit and planet. If we intensify food production, because we want at all costs to make more money, and