820m went hungry last year: Two scandals challenge our decency

Last March, Ireland joined 200 other countries when we committed to the Food Waste Charter. The objective is to, “by 2030, halve global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses”.

Food waste is one of the great moral failings of our age. Comparing just two figures in the United Nations’ State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 report, published yesterday, confirms that discomforting assertion. Hunger rose for a third consecutive year in 2017. Last year, 821m people — one in nine of us — went hungry.