Tuesday 30 July 2013

Food Waste Crisis!!! (FWC)

Breaking news in Australian kitchens! Up to a quarter of the food being bought in a year is put in the bin. I repeat, a quarter of YOUR food is going in the bin! That's 4 MILLION TONNES of half eaten, past-its-used-by and perfectly good food wasted every year in Australia !!!!!!!!
Our team decided to collect and weigh all the food scraps that had been thrown out in our school in one day
 
 
 


How does this terrible occurrence happen? Ask yourself, do you eat EVERYTHING you buy? Do you still use products once they have passed their "Best Before" date? Do you have a worm farm or compost heap? If you answered no to any of the above questions then you could be part of this tragedy!

 Every time a piece of food is thrown out, every time that out of date product is discarded they worm their way into the great tragedy that is the Food Waste Crisis (FWC).
This FWC is rearing its ugly head all across the country! Households are losing $600 dollars per year to the beast of the feast. Hide your kids! Hide your wives! Or the next thing you know your family members will be shipped off to the tip!

Book now because space is filling up fast! Our landfill facilities are currently housing unnecessary  tonnes of food waste! This staggering stastic is only belittled by the amount of greenhouse gases, particularly methane, the food produces when it breaks down!

 
Statistics:

·         Australians discard up to 20% of the food they purchase

·         This equates to 1 out of every 5 bags of groceries they buy

·         Up to 40% of the average household garbage bin is food

·         For the average Australian household $1,036 of food is thrown away each year

What could this be spent on:
 
·         Enough to feed the average household for over a month

·         Paying off six months of your electricity bill

·         Aussies throw out $8 billion of edible food every year

·         Australia wastes 4 million tonnes of food each year

·         This equates to 523kg per household, which is the same weight as just over 5 average size            fridges!
 
Out of the $8 billion what do we waste every year?
 
·         $2.67 billion of fresh food = 33%

·         $2.18 billion of leftovers = 27%

·         $1.17 billion of packaged and long-life products = 15%

·         $727 million of drinks = 9%

·         $727 million of frozen food = 9%

·         $566 million of takeaways = 7%

 
Why is it wasted?
 
·         We cook too much food

·         Food is mistakenly thrown out before the use-by/best before date

·         We forget about leftovers in the fridge/freezer

·         We don't know how to use leftovers

·         We buy too much because we don't stick to a shopping list

·         We often shop when we're hungry so we buy more food than we need

·         We don't check the cupboard or fridge before going shopping

·         We are not planning our meals and menus as much as we could

·         Buying takeaways at the last minute instead of cooking the food we have in/family members           changing plans
 
Who are the biggest wasters of food?
 
·         Young consumers (18-24)

·         Households with incomes of more than $100,000 per year

·         Families with children
 

 
When food rots in landfill, it gives off a greenhouse gas called Methane which is 25 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere, than the carbon pollution that comes out of your car exhaust.

The hidden impact?


When you throw out food, you also waste the water, fuel and resources it took to get the food from the paddock to your plate.

An estimated 20-40% of fruit and vegetables are rejected even before they reach the shops mostly because they do not match consumers' and supermarkets' high cosmetic standards.

If you add up the food Australia wastes each year, it's enough to fill 450,000 garbage trucks. Placed end to end, the convoy would bridge the gap between Australia and New Zealand just over three times.
 
According to CSIRO data, dumping a kg of beef can waste the 15,000 litres it took to produce that meat. Throwing out a kilo of white rice will waste 2,385 litres. The water and energy used to produce our crops and livestock is out of sight and out of mind when we throw it in the bin. 
Around the world each year, approximately one third of our food supply goes to waste.
This 1.3 billon tonnes of food, valued at nearly US$1 trillion dollars, is lost in the food supply chain while 900 million people go hungry.
To address these staggering figures and encourage both governments and organisations to join the battle against food waste, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation has established the “Save Food” initiative - a global effort designed to cut down on food losses and waste.
In June 2012, Save Food released Food Wastage Footprints to communicate the scale of this global problem.


Resources used to collect information and statistics used in this blog
lunchalot.com

 What are some solutions to this huge problem?

  • plan meals and use a shopping list
  • only buy the food that you're sure you will consume
  • check what food is at home or if the food is out of date before you buy more
  • use left-overs as the basis for other meals
  • place any vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags in a compost system or worm farm or feed to the chooks
  • grow your own fruit and vegetables so that you can pick as you need 
  • give away any excess food you have to a charity organisation such as Foodbank or Second Bite
  •  share your excess food with friends, families and neighbours
  • freeze and preserve excess food or left over meals  
Foodbank NSW is a non-denominational, community supported not-for-profit, that collects unwanted food and re-distributes it to people in need through welfare agencies.
Foodbank NSW is the largest food relief agency in NSW, providing 95% of all wholesale emergency food relief in the state.
 Did you know that in NSW:
  • More than 680,000 people have run out of food or gone hungry in the last 12 months
  • Half of these hungry are children
  • The need is growing, particularly amongst the working poor and elderly
  • Foodbank NSW delivers 5.3 million meals a year to people in need in NSW (and more than 31 million meals nationally) but there is an ever-increasing demand that needs to be met.
  • Foodbank NSW supplies more than 470 charities, community groups and schools with the food it takes to feed the disadvantaged.
  • Foodbank NSW saves 4 million kgs of food from being dumped very year. This food not only goes to feeding the needy, but also reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 6 million kgs a year.

  • Foodbank is by far the largest hunger relief organisation in Australia

    Home
    SecondBite is an Australian organisation committed to making a positive difference to people by identifying sources of nutritious surplus fresh food and produce that would otherwise go to waste and facilitating its safe and timely distribution to agencies and people in need.

    Thursday 25 July 2013

    The Importance of Agricultural Exports to Australia


    Australia is a significant world producer of many agricultural products, including wheat, wool and beef. Major commercial crops include broadacre grains, oilseeds and legumes to more intensive crops such as rice, sugar, cotton, grapes, bananas, and potatoes. Major livestock products include beef, wool and dairy products, and sheep, pig and poultry meats. In 2010-11 total farm production was $60 billion and exports were around $45 billion.
    A realy good short video on Australian farm value can be seen at
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJHvz05mkfw

    Relative to its size in the Australian economy, agriculture provides a disproportionately large share of Australia’s exports: 21 per cent of merchandise exports compared to 3 per cent of GDP. GDP is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living. GDP is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period.

    Agriculture is one of the largest employers in Australia, providing over 350,000 jobs in 2010-11. Agriculture also represents a significant input into many other industries, particularly the food processing industry, which had a turnover of $65 billion and a value added of $24 billion.

    It is generally acknowledged that Australia has a strong comparative advantage in the production of agricultural products. This is a result of our size, geography, use of tech-nology and workforce skills. Consequently, agriculture is one of the most productive and internationally competitive sectors of the Australian economy. Productivity is expected to increase quite considerably over the next few year due to the ending of the recent drought which lasted around 10 years in some areas.


    There are approximately 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, 99 percent of which are family owned and operated. Each Australian farmer produces enough food to feed 600 people, 150 at home and 450 overseas. Australian farmers produce almost 93 percent of Australia’s daily domestic food supply.

    As of 2010-11, there are 307,000 people employed in Australian agriculture. The complete agricultural supply chain, including the affiliated food and fibre industries, provide over 1.6 million jobs to the Australian economy.

    The agricultural sector, at farm-gate, contributes 3 percent to Australia’s total gross domestic product (GDP). The gross value of Australian farm production in 2010-11 was $48.7 billion.
    Yet this is only part of the picture. When the vital value-adding processes that food and fibre go through once they leave the farm are added in, along with the value of all the economic activities supporting farm production through farm inputs, agriculture’s contribution to the GDP averages out at around 12 percent (or $155 billion).

    Percentage of GDP of Australian Agricultural Exports


    Australian farmers export around 60 percent of what they grow and produce. Australia’s farm exports earned the country $32.5 billion in 2010-11, up from $32.1 billion in 2008-09, while the wider agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors earn the country $36.2 billion in exports. The value of our farm exports, and indeed the future of Australian agriculture, depends largely on conditions in overseas markets, due to our high level of exports.





    Australian farmers continue to face the challenge of declining terms of trade in agriculture, yet remain internationally competitive through efficiencies and productivity growth. The growth in the farm sector has increased steadily over the 30 year period from 1974-75 to 2003-04 at an average rate of 2.8 percent, consistently out-performing other sectors. In more recent times, agricultural productivity growth has slowed to 1 percent per annum, illustrating the need for an increased spend on research and development to ensure the industry can meet the food and fibre needs of the growing world population.

    Export markets take the bulk of Australian wheat, beef, cotton, sugar and wool production. Domestic markets are as important or more important than export markets for mutton, dairy products, coarse grains, pulses and horticultural crops.
    Around 70 per cent of Australian farm production is exported. Strong opportunities for food exports have emerged in the Asian region, with rising living standards and changes in dietary preferences create demand for more food and for a wider variety. Processed food exports have increased, on average, by 10 per cent over the past 10 years.

    http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html
    http://www.aust-immig-book.com.au/business/overview-australian-agriculture
    http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=UDd-1WpoZeIgaM&tbnid=W5enS-ns0xXHJM:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Farchibullprize.com.au%2Fff%2Fagriculturalexports.html&ei=_AvxUdi-B8bTkgWzlIDoDA&bvm=bv.49784469,d.aGc&psig=AFQjCNGfOpJH0i_OHS-tuJalch_oHmtUSA&ust=1374838090184212

    http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=3sfN6VJYXsYesM&tbnid=VCj-2jL1qvwz-M:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.daff.gov.au%2Fmarket-access-trade&ei=ZQvxUaGVOMfPlAXRqICoDQ&bvm=bv.49784469,d.aGc&psig=AFQjCNEa2QzlH4jB8g7f0Dl6euKLv25dUA&ust=1374837867948578




    The challenge for Australian agriculture and our farmers will, of course, be in meeting this booming world need for food and fibre through increasing production - at a time when we have less arable land, less water and less human resources.

    Wednesday 17 July 2013

    The Story of How Milk is Made.

    On one fine sunny day, we join Udder Brilliance in a rich green pasture. She and her friends were joyously grazing on the fibrous grasses that made up their diet.





    "How is it that we can make milk for humans but the sheep can't?" One of her friends pondered aloud.








    Udder Brillance had also been wondering about how they did this, so she and her friend strolled over to the wise,old, grey bearded ram Herald.





    "Herald?" Udder Cuteness enquired, "How is it that cows can make humans' milk but some other animals can't?"
    Herold told the two girls to take a seat as he cleared his voice and began his story.




    "Now, you young ladies want to know how you make milk?" the two nodded.
    "Okay" his old raspy voice echoed in the barn, "Did you girls know that you have four stomachs?This is why you can make milk.  You have got the Rumen, which is your first stomach, this is where all your chewed up grass goes," he smiled at the two who where keenly listening.

    "Next you have a Reticulum" he continued. "This is like a big jar, where all your stomach acids dissolve the grass and this takes a very long time" he gave a wary smile "After that all finishes the watery grass goes through the third stomach, the Omasum, Then into the fourth and final stomach the Abomasum." He looked to the two girls who where eager with questions.

    "So it's because the grass goes through four different tummies?" Udder Brilliance's friend asked.

    "Yep, that's why" the old Ram smiled. "Now off you pop and on the way out, try some of the Farmer's new rosemary, it's delicious" he laughed as the two walked away, talking about all they had learnt, and how they were going to tell all their friends, well after they tested some of the rosemary.




                                               Zia with our baby lamb Patches

    The digestive system of the cow

                                 
    http://www.barransclass.com/phys1090/circus/GardnerS/cow-stomachs.jpg




    https://www.google.com.au/search?q=images+of+cows+digestive+system&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=lIXmUf_kKIe6iQfvm4HAAg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=648#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Bh6b15W1fQR0eM%3A%3BwODTLPW-aN2PrM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.landlearnnsw.org.au%252F__data%252Fassets%252Fimage%252F0014%252F302342%252Fdigestive-system-dairy-cow.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.landlearnnsw.org.au%252Fsustainability%252Fclimate-change%252Fagriculture%252Flivestock%252Fmethane%3B400%3B300
    Before writting this

    Out in the community

    Where does our food come from? Australia or overseas?



    
    Shoalhaven High Archibull Prize team at Woolworths supermarket in Nowra



    Marni and Amy


    The Shoalhaven High Archibull team made a visit to the local Woolworths supermarket and we created a research survey about food products that are grown and produced in Australia and available for consumers to buy.There were 20 surveys completed which we though was a decent sample size. While we were there, we found some surprising discoveries.

                       Chloe, Gemma, Kristian and Miss K collect data on peanut butter


    We found out that some products were imported from different countries, even products that were exactly the same but in smaller packaging sizes. Cadbury chocolate biscuits were an example of this.


                               Rochelle, Tabetha and Marjorie in the dairy section

    One thing we realised was that the supermarkets had placed all their dairy products at the back of their stores. This was so you had to walk through all the aisles before you get to the dairy products. The supermarkets do this so you hopefully buy the other products along the way that help pay for their margins of profits lost on the cheap staple products like milk.

    The results of the survey were gathered and 92% of dairy products are produced in Australia and come from Australian farms.That was very encouraging!!! While 63% of all the other types of food and clothing products sold in this supermarket are from Australia.

    We have made a video about our experience which you can view at
    http://youtu.be/wSp6onGBcGo


    This is what our survey looked like:



    Our task: Part 1:

    1.       Walk around Woolworths supermarket and locate some food products

    2.       Make a list of the products you selected

    3.       Select appropriate enterprise from which your product originated from (lamb, beef, cotton, grain, etc.).

    4.       Research product origin (where the product was manufactured)?


    Supermarket Product

    Enterprise

    Where was the product made (country)

    1.

     

     

    2.

     

     

    3.

     

     

    4.

     

     

    5.

     

     

    6.

     

     

    7.

     

     

    8.

     

     

    9.

     

     

    10.

     

     

    11.

     

     

    12.

     

     

    13.

     

     

    14.

     

     

    15.

     

     

    16.

     

     

    17.

     

     

    18.

     

     

    19.

     

     

    20.

     

     

    Questions

    1.       What percentages of products are made in Australia?

    2.       Why is buying Australian made important for Australian Farmers?

    Task 2: Dairy Products

    1.       List 10 Dairy Products


    Dairy Product

    Where was the product made (country)

    1.

     

    2.

     

    3.

     

    4.

     

    5.

     

    6.

     

    7.

     

    8.

     

    9.

     

    10.

     

    Question

    1.       What percentages of these products are produced in Australia? _______________________

    Ideas to consider;

    (a)    It would be great to complete this activity in an Asian country to see how many Australian products appear on their supermarket shelves.

    (b)   Remember Australian exports are an important part of a sustainable farming future.

    (c)    In 2011-2012 Australia exported 6% of its Dairy products to overseas markets

    (d)   Processed products are increasingly becoming more popular for export, such as cheese.

    (e)   Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are our biggest importer.

    (f)     “As a major exporter of agricultural produce and services, more than two thirds of agricultural commodities produced on farms are exported each year. Among the agribusiness export industries, the average proportion of production exported ranges from 98 per cent for wool to 51 per cent for dairy products.” (http://www.austrade.gov.au/Buy/Australian-Industry-Capability/Agribusiness/default.aspx)

    (g)     The value of the agricultural exports in 2011-12 was $35.9 billion

    (h)   “Over the past twenty years, the production and exports of beef, wine and dairy products have increased significantly in response to growing overseas demand for higher value products”( http://www.austrade.gov.au/Buy/Australian-Industry-Capability/Agribusiness/default.aspx)

    (i)      “There are approximately 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, 99 percent of which are family owned and operated. Each Australian farmer produces enough food to feed 600 people, 150 at home and 450 overseas. Australian farmers produce almost 93 percent of Australia’s daily domestic food supply. As of 2010-11, there are 307,000 people employed in Australian agriculture. The complete agricultural supply chain, including the affiliated food and fibre industries, provide over 1.6 million jobs to the Australian economy”( http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html)

     
    (j)     “The agricultural sector, at farm-gate, contributes 3 percent to Australia’s total gross domestic product (GDP). The gross value of Australian farm production in 2010-11 was $48.7 billion. Yet this is only part of the picture. When the vital value-adding processes that food and fibre go through once they leave the farm are added in, along with the value of all the economic activities supporting farm production through farm inputs, agriculture’s contribution to the GDP averages out at around 12 percent (or $155 billion). Australian farmers export around 60 percent of what they grow and produce” (http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html)

     

    Questions

    As Consumers how can we ensure Australians buy Australian made products?

    __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    As Australians how can we increase our export trade with other countries?



                                         Deborah investigates fresh pasta products