From Global to Local & Personal Food Issues

$$$, Land,Poverty, Hunger, Pollution, Extinction,

Climate

Justice,Mercy,

Equality,Human &

Animal Right

The Story Starts with M…

Me?

Money? Monopoly? McDonald?

Meat?Man?

Migrate?

Mind?Model?

CityCountrysidePoor Rich

Starved StuffedVegetable MeatResources Consumption

Polluted by

Excess Waste

Limited Resource Depletion

What is the consequence of this unidirectional movement?

Rich becomes

richer

Poor becomes

poorer

Mmm… Few people &

companies with $$$$$

may become

Monopoly, and grow

Mono-crop and

livestock intensively.

Customers’ choices are

controlled by a few big

companies.

Small farmers’ crop

prices are controlled by mass buyer.

Livestock and Wild Lives are

killed massively

Many consumersAdvertisements encourage people to consume specific food products. Customers’

choices are controlled.

Few big Food traders, Supermarkets, Fast Food Companies

Many small farmersThey are encouraged to grow some Specific

Economic Crops (Coffee, Sugar Cane etc.) which the selling price may be even lower than production cost.

International Food Market(Towards Monopoly the way to make $)

International Coffee Price1970s - 1980s: > USD 2 /kgMinimal record (2001):USD 0.907 /kgCurrent: ~USD 1.5-1.7 / kg

Selling price from farmer to consumer Buying Price could increase 100s times…

Over 1 billion people are hungry over the world… and 3/4 of them are farmers!

Many Traditional Crop Types & Diverse Farm Eco-system

Replaced by genetic modified crops, destroyed by heavy use of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticide

Huge land and water resources are contaminated by

fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, and occupied by poisonous species

Few big Seed companies, Fertilizer, Pesticide & Herbicide Producers

International Crop Farming(Towards Mono-Crop the way to low market price)

The World According to Monsanto• It used to produce and promote highly

toxic chemicals such as dioxin (as chemical weapon in Vietnam war, wide spread poisonous herbicides)

• Promote itself as “Green Company”. Produce roundup herbicide and resistant genetic modified crops.

• Force all farmers to buy & use their patented seeds by all means (political, economical, advertisement, law, etc.)

• Produce Bovine Growth hormone.• Their products are wide spread all over

the world land and market

“We can’t afford to lose one dollar.”“Whoever owns the seeds, owns the food”

Large forest and inhabited wild lives are cut / burnt / killed

Huge quantity of fresh water & food resources are used

Livestock are cruelly treated and killed

Global warming due to reduced CO2 uptake ability from

forest and the Methane produced.Excrement Pollution

especially from factory farms

Livestock Farming

Livestock Farming(The major cause of most environmental problems)

We’re Destroying Natural Food Chain

Coral Bleaching:

Global warming (main reason) cause the death of algae or the loss of pigmentation within.

Whole Coral Ecosystem suffers.

Red Tide & Algae Bloom:

Excess fertilizer, herbicide, livestock manure, flow into the sea, results poisonous algae bloom, oxygen depletion and dead zone.

Malnourished… Over-nourished…

Food Chain on the Land- Livestock Industry the main cause of deforestation

2006 Statistics (FAO): Among the World land area12% - Arable land & permanent

crop~4% growing livestock feed, ~8% for human food and biofuel

26% - Permanent Pasture

30% - ForestAmazon

12% World Land as Arable Land36% of Cereals (rice, wheat etc) and 97% of soy cake (protein rich soy product) are used as livestock feed.

26% Permanent Pasture

Alfalfa (Legume)

Grasses on some pasture land are not anyhow grown

Do you know the price of alfalfa sprout?

Water & Global WarmingSea ice (e.g. arctic ice) melt is more reversible (refrozen in

winter) and does not contribute to sea level rise.

Melting of Land ice (e.g. Greenland, Antarctic ice sheet & Himalayan glaciers) takes much longer time to rebuild by

rainfall/snowfall. Resulted sea level rise threatens the coastal region, and glacier retreat threatens fresh water supply

Glaciers in the Himalayas, a 2400km range that sweeps through Pakistan, India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, provide headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers, lifelines for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.

Fresh Water Consumption

Sugar cane ~ 175L virtual water / kgPotatoes ~ 250L virtual water / kg

Food & Climate Change

Unsustainable Diet &

Agriculture Practice

Climate Change

Food & Water Supplied

Threatened

Get richer and Buy more

land, labor, water, food

from the poor

Afraid of Losing Money & Control

Food, Climate Change, Eco-SystemUnsustainable Diet & Agriculture Practice

Climate Change

Loss of Habitat

Direct Murder of Wild Lives

Increased frequency and

strength of climate disaster Burning Fossil Fuel

Loss of Food Source

Polluted Environment

Feedbacks Accelerating Global Warming

Less sunlight reflected, more absorbed heat

Methane (CH4) released from permafrost

Dry weather results more frequent and severe forest fire. More CO2 are released

3ºC increase will make forests net CO2 emitter, resulting uncontrollable global warming

6th Mass ExtinctionOrdovician-Silurian extinction~ 439 million yrs agoLate Devonian extinction ~ 364 million yrs agoPermian-Triassic extinction ~ 251 million yrs agoEnd Triassic extinction ~199 million to 214 million yrs agoCretaceous-Tertiary extinction ~65 million yrs ago

6th Mass Extinction just started

MMMMM….

Your DecisionIt is good for

you to continue

same lifestyle.

Rely on me. You just

need to get richer as I

did~

What should I do?

Should I keep old practice? Or should I invite others

to form a collective

force to save our planet?

We need to connect the suppliers to consumers

through more channels

We need to connect to NATURE

There is much fun and interesting stuff about nature, good to feed our curiosity~

Poor

Countryside

ExcessLimited Resource

Crossing the M…

Recycle

Re-distribute

Re-allocate

Rich

City Reuse

ReduceReplace

with renewable resources

with improved efficiency

Singapore Food Situation(Self calculated with AVA statistics 2008)

% supplied locally

Vegetables ~ 5%

Cereals ~ 0%

Eggs ~ 25%

Chicken ~ 3%

Fish ~ 7%

Ducks, Pork, Beef, Mutton, Fruits - 0%

Land Stress for Food

Singapore: 4.7 million people, 700 km2

Minimum for Vegan ~ 500m2/capital

17% Land to feed 5% population

Minimum for US diet ~ 5000m2/capital

170% Land to feed 5% population

Current World Average (Agriculture land / population) ~ 7500m2 / capita !!!

Singapore Food ChallengesFrom the information in previous page, the choice of diet, food distribution efficiency, and farming technique are all

influencing the required land to feed our population.

Considering the local diet habit and food distribution situation, the agriculture land used to feed an average Singapore resident should be closed to the minimum

area to feed US adult.

In other words, with current practice, even we use all our land for agriculture purpose, we may only feed about 3% population (huge increase in water consumption not yet considered)

~Brain Storming~

How shall we achieve food & water sovereignty?

Is Singapore slum-free?

Food For AllA Singapore-based research

and action groupOur aims:•Support local food rations programmes

•Raise awareness of hunger and food issues

•Encourage the appreciation, and respect for, good food and those who prepare and grow it.

•Connect diverse local food groups into a strong collective force for our common goal

Directory of Local Food Groups - EateriesFood #03: a Veg Place and an art project started by a group of creative people interested to change the world. “In short, feed your body, mind and soul.”

Food for Thought: a social enterprise cafe that ploughs back a significant portion of their profits into social causes such as the Clean Water Fund, sponsoring poor children under the World Vision Singapore’s Area Development Projects.

Loving Hut: a chain of vegan fast food outlets that serves delicious food, and actively supports diet change for environmental sustainability.

Directory of Local Food Groups – Environment Groups

Food 4 Thought: a subcommittee under SAVE, the National University of Singapore’s environmental group. Their objective is to educate students and staff on dietary and lifestyle changes to effectively reduce an individual’s carbon footprint.

Green Drinks: a great meeting place for people in the environmental movement in Singapore – and they frequently feature food-related issues!

Vegetarian Society: Singapore’s premier vegetarian group that does extensive awareness and outreach to the general public

Directory of Local Food Groups – Hunger Groups

Food from the Heart: A charity that has launched many meaningful programmes distributing unsold bread and other dried food to community food programmes and needy children provided they attend school.

FoodXervices: A Singapore-based food distributor actively reaching out to the community through their Xervice With a Heart Programme. FoodXervices has been a key partner in the Food Matching Programme, and organized a very successful warehouse sale cum food donation drive with ONE (Singapore) in 2009.

ONE (Singapore): A non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness and taking concrete actions to Make Poverty History. ONE (Singapore) organized the Every One Can warehouse sale cum food donation drive with FoodXervices and intends to do more food-relate social action.

Directory of Local Food Groups - Farming & Permaculture (1)

Bollywood Veggies: A near-organic lifestyle farm in Kranji that aims to promotes food growing amongst Singaporeans and promote the Singapore countryside. See also: Kranji Countryside Association.

Go Organic Farm: Singapore’s first USDA certified organic farm! Go Organic Farm uses unique technologies such as ‘farm-in-the-box’, soya fiber organic fertilizer and high-quality burnt and sterilized soil to grow some of the healthiest vegetables in town! Offers veg boxes!

Green Circle Eco-farm: A biodynamic near-organic vegetable farm in Singapore, dedicated to producing healthy food and looking after the environment. Green Circle also offers veg box delivery services!

Directory of Local Food Groups - Farming & Permaculture (2)

Ground-Up Initiative: An inspiring sustainable living community in Singapore that is developing a Sustainable Urban Farming model for the country’s urban context. You have to read their story!

Community in Bloom: A governmental project under National Parks, promoting community gardens in areas of public & private housing estates, and within the premises of organisations or school. You can even apply to start your own community garden project!

Directory of Local Food Groups - Organic & Fair Trade

PS: Here are two guides to where you can buy organic food and fairtrade food in Singapore, courtesy of Mr. Jared Tham!

Cielo Sereno: an organic lifestyle promotion group, set up to educate the public on the significance behind an organic and vegetarian lifestyle, to help interested parties to get started on a healthy organic diet, to catalyse social network among organic goers and pro-organic organisations, and to facilitate the flourishing of the organic industries.

FairTrade SG: An open yahoo group for everyone in Singapore

Kampung Senang: a holistic living centre that runs a mini organic farm as a living classroom and community space, and also organized Singapore’s first organic food coop, in which individual households team up to buy organic food in bulk!

Singapore Food Waste SituationHsien H. Khoo, Teik Z. Lim, Reginald B.H. Tan, Food waste conversion options in Singapore: Environmental impacts based on an LCA perspective, Science of The Total Environment A large bulk of food waste is directed to incinerators. A remaining small percent is sent for recycling via anaerobic digestion (AD), followed by composting of the digestate material……The total normalized results showed that a small-scale proposed aerobic composting system is more environmentally favorable than incinerators, but less ideal compared to the AD process. By making full use of the AD's Recycling Phase II process alone, the Singapore Green Plan's 2012 aim to increase the recycling of food waste to 30% can easily be achieved, along with reduced global warming impacts.

Short Summary – “R”s to be Done

“R”s Short Description

Replace (Food)

Educate and encourage people to replace animal based diet to plant based diet

Redistribute (Food)

Find Out the local poverty who needs food, connect them to supplier with excess food

Reallocate (Man

Power)

Encourage more people to start / involve in community / roof top farms. Other than housing estates, hospitals, schools, and even prison are

good place to find volunteers

Short Summary – “R”s to be Done

“R”s Short Description

Recycle (food to

energy & fertilizer)

Build waste food collection system and send to anaerobic digester to generate power. Solid residue (digestate) can be used as fertilizer

supplying local farm.Recycle (food to

food)

Some unwanted food after fermentation could be edible (e.g. vinegar, yogurt, alcohol, more study is

needed)

Recover (Food)

Some plants that we thought as weed could be edible and tasty (e.g. Oxalidaceae, but don’t eat

much). Also look into what plant food more suitable to be grown in tropic city.

Food Ration Program - Background

• Volunteered at local food rations programme in 2006

• Assisting low income households and elderly couples

• May 2009: 280 families, S$3000 for rice, cooking oil, canned food, bread, milk powder, cereals (< total value of food distributed because of June surplus and food already donated before email appeal)

Why Are People Hungry?

• Possible reasons include:– Inability to obtain viable long-term

employment, esp. lack of suitable job opportunities for elderly

– Inaccessibility of the poor: “no begging” laws, difficulty communicating due to language barriers and complicated applications for formal social services

• Hunger plays a part:– Focus on short-term needs (i.e. food)

and may be unwilling/unable to plan ahead for income stability

– Affects physical and mental health, and ability to make rational decisions

Current Situation

• No public statistics on hunger and poverty in Singapore; some research on local poverty conducted by the NUS Social Work Department and documented by various NGOs

• The hungry are discovered when RCs, NCs and VWOs do door-knocking

• Food from the Heart (www.foodheart.org): Best established food rations programme in Singapore assists some 11, 000 families through bread distribution, school goodie bag programme and self-collection centres

• Preliminary survey by Food for All has identified an additional 45 FRPs (mainly in CDCs and RCs) - assisting 50-200 people each

Issues encountered

• Ad-hoc: FRP not core activity of Family Service Centre/Community Centre --> offered due to demand from needy residents

• Manpower: packing and distributing of food rations was done mainly by elderly volunteers with RCs and students

• Cost of food: rations bought at retail price (35-45% markup*); higher food prices creates higher demand for food rations

• Black market: No documentation of FRPs and little communication between FRPs --> scams whereby same persons apply to multiple FRPs and hoard food

• Inappropriate food: Over-reliance on single corporate sponsor; halal food; inability to afford fuel to cook dried food; variety, etc.

Reflections• Many more hungry and poor than we may think -

many are invisible• Food Rations Programmes in Singapore are

hidden too! • Current programmes may be stop-gap measures

rather than an integrated long-term strategy to combat poverty and hunger

• Issue is not food shortages, but a lack of information and capacity

• Poor and hungry not involved in community organizing - leading to ‘bad fit’ and disempowerment

• Need for holistic understanding of food resilience: incorporating action on food prices and community food security

What Can Be Done?

• Encouraging community food programmes that involve the hungry as an equal partner

• Documenting FRPs and putting them in touch with each other, and with the relevant government agencies

• Creating platform for FRPs to purchase directly from food suppliers and distributors

• Raising awareness of extent of hunger and poverty: involve more community groups and NGOs to conduct effective food drives

• Researching the root causes of hunger and poverty in Singapore

Hope for Singapore Food Sovereignty (2008 data from AVA)

Food Type 2008 Import (Tonnes)

Suggested Target (asap) How?

Chicken 165,287 Cut by 90%These

theoretically can be

achieved by replacing

animal based diet to plant based diet

Ducks 15,049 Cut by 90%Pork 93,260 Cut by 90%Beef 28,848 Cut by 90%Mutton 10,014 Cut by 90%

Fish 82,645 Cut by 90%

Hen Eggs 67,019 Cut by 60%

Vegetables 394,162 MaintainAll other “R”s

Fruits 361,766 Maintain

Thank YouQ & A