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Losses occur even before leaving the farms. Precious resources are invested to produce crops, yet unfortunate circumstances and loopholes in the system prevent a substantial amount of fresh produce from making it to the next stage of the food supply chain.
1. THROWING AWAY THE “UGLY” ONES
Stringent standards by the food market depict that food leaving the farm is expected to be fresh and flawless. There is high need for consistency in the size, shape, color, and texture of foods, to provide consumers with the most attractive and marketable items. People expect their carrots to be straight, apples to be red and smooth, and vegetables to be green and unblemished. Plants are bound to have some natural variation while growing and having such a strict judgement on appearance is unreasonable. Being unable to sell the rest of the deformed, blemished, or irregular produce, they unfortunately get tossed or left unharvested. Hence precious resources invested to produce them are wasted.
Credit: UglyFruitAndVeg
2. growing excessive crops to ensure profit
It is difficult for farmers to estimate how much food to grow due to difficulty in accurately predicting yield of crops. For example, unforeseen weather may destroy their harvest. Therefore, many farmers prefer to grow crops in excess so that they can constantly meet the supply of consumers and gain profit. A large fraction of crops are thus left unharvested, because of loopholes in the system, not because they are unripe or spoiled. In fact, 6 billion pounds of crops are left unharvested every year.
2. appearance as a proxy for quality
The criteria for harvest is merely a brief appearance check to assess quality and ripeness. Produce that may not have ripened as quickly as other crops miss this window to get harvested and as mentioned, are left in the fields. These may eventually be ploughed back into the soil.