Recap of Workshop 4: Food Security

Today the students learned about food security and sustainable agriculture. We started off the discussion by thinking about which food group gets wasted the most in the U.S. The participants' responses varied from meats to fats/oils. However the most wasted food group was vegetables at an annual rate of $30 billion a year! Overall, Americans waste about $162 billion/year or about 141 trillion calories every day. Approximately 795 million people are malnourished, while 836 million people live in extreme poverty (less than $1.25/day).

While thinking about food security, the students also learned about how our food is grown: conventional vs. sustainable agriculture. The students were able to learn about the benefits and detriments to different farming techniques. They were able to get a glimpse of agricultural practices in Peru and how a small village was able to harvest water from catching fog!