“Meat was out of the question . We were seeing a lot of illnesses in people because of the lack of nutrients they were eating and workers weren’t able to farm because of lack of energy.”
Another unfortunate paradox is that while we as a planet are consuming more - we are also throwing away more too: it’s estimated we bin 1.6 billion tonnes of food a year globally - and of this, 1.3 billion tonnes are still edible according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. These statistics become even more unsettling when you realise that while obesity levels and the amount of food we throw out both climb, there are still people in the world who don’t even have enough to eat three meals a day. Julio Mercado Cantilla, 57, is a small-hold banana farmer in Columbia: before selling Fair Trade bananas him and his family were forced to eat just one meal a day during what he calls the lean months - periods that could last three to four months a year. During that time Julio and his large family, of eight adult children and 14 grandchildren, would eat little more than pasta with banana to sustain them. “Meat was out of the question. We were seeing a lot of illnesses in people because of the lack of nutrients they were eating and workers weren’t able to farm because of lack of energy.”