Page 37 - EarthHeroes

Isabel and Mia drove down a dirt track between trees laden with fruit. They pulled up in front of a farmhouse, its white walls gleaming in the sunshine. Luis was already waiting for them with crates stacked up in the shade. The women got out and greeted him with a hug. Isabel picked up a pear from one of the crates. It was pinkish green and marked with brown spots. Next to the pears was a tray of tiny red apples. As Mia opened her purse and paid Luis, Isabel loaded the fruit into the back of the van. It was almost full of produce they’d collected that morning – knobbly carrots, skinny leeks, yellow-green spinach and funny- shaped tomatoes. This was their last farm stop and soon they were driving back through the rolling countryside, past fields, vineyards and villages towards the noisy bustle of Lisbon.
Isabel Soares and her friend Mia Canelhas were in the Portuguese countryside buying produce to sell: fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be wasted simply because they were the wrong shape, size or colour. In the European Union, 30 per cent of food produced is thrown away because, despite its good quality and taste, it does not look as perfect as the supermarkets and their customers demand. This is part of a wider problem: it is estimated that rich countries together waste more than 1.3 billion tonnes of food a year. That is enough to feed the 820 million people who face starvation worldwide.
Although it is possible to sell ‘imperfect’ produce to manufacturers of juice,
jam and sauces, farmers don’t always do this because they aren’t paid enough money to cover the cost of harvesting it. Instead, this unwanted produce is sometimes fed to animals, but more often than not, it is simply left to rot on
the ground. Not only has soil, energy and water been wasted in growing that food, but when it rots, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to greenhouse gases.
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