Food fact bites

Did you know…?

Food miles: 95 per cent of fruit and 50 per cent of all vegetables consumed in the UK are imported. Food transport accounts for 25 per cent of the HGV-miles on our roads. Between 1992 and 2002, food miles increased by 15 per cent.
Greenhouse gases: 20 per cent of our climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food.
Processed food requires around 15 times more energy to produce than raw, unprocessed food.
Food waste: Households in the UK throw away 6.7m tonnes of food every year – a third of all of the food we buy.
Packaging: We use more food packaging per person than any other country in Europe – 500 million plastic bottles and 8 billion plastic bags a year which is double what we used 10 years. Most of this waste is incinerated or buried in landfill sites.
Recycling: Approximately 3 billion aluminium cans and 9 billion steel cans are dumped in UK landfill sites each year.
Habitat conversion: an area of natural habitat the size of Greece is converted into agricultural land each year. This includes large areas of rainforest, wetlands and mountainous regions.
Intensive farming is believed to be responsible for a decline in more than 40 per cent of farmland bird populations since 1970. Pesticide exposure creates a health risk for wildlife, farmers and consumers.
Water pollution: Agriculture is responsible for the pollution of waterways with phosphates, nitrates, suspended solids and pesticides.
Water use: Agriculture is responsible for 70 per cent of global water withdrawals. It takes 130 litres of water to produce 500 calories in the form of maize; 4,900 litres in the form of beef.
Soil degradation: 46 per cent of agricultural land is moderately degraded and 16 per cent is strongly degraded.