18/02/2015

“Why are we not feeding food waste to farm animals?”

I met with food waste campaigner and author, Tristram Stuart, at Hackney City Farm, to gather his thoughts on food waste. He shared his insights: “The only sensible thing to do with food waste is to feed it to farm animals. That’s what we domesticated pigs and poultry for, and they’re exceptionally good at it.”

He continued: “The fact that in the EU, this practice is more or less banned, is one of the most obstructive, environmentally damaging and socially irresponsible pieces of legislation on the planet.”

Tristram discussed the fact that to feed industrially reared animals we have to import millions of tonnes of soy from South America , which leads to deforestation and other environmentally devastating consequences, a subject matter that I cover in Farmageddon.

I have spoken of the future and the solution to waste as putting animals back on the land, feeding them with food waste and in that synergy, having a sustainable and humane food system. Tristram agreed with me, wholeheartedly: “We’re disposing of millions of tonnes of food waste and we should be using it as a resource. We waste between a third and a half of all the food we produce, when a billion people are hungry. This makes absolutely no sense.” Follow mine and Tristram’s discussion further, in this short film.

For your copy of ‘Farmageddon: The true cost of cheap meat’, click here.