Over a third of the farmed fruit and vegetables in the U.S. never even make it to grocery store shelves. One reason is simple economics. Dr. Marco Palma, an Agriculture Extension economist at Texas A&M, says the price of a crop can actually go so low that just harvesting it would cost more than the profit from selling it and farmers plow it under when they plant a new crop. So what do they do with the ones that are too ugly or misshapen for American's shopping standards?
“They chop it up and feed it to their farm animals!” says Dr. Palma.“
Nonprofits are looking into win-win situations between the farmers and feeding our nation's hungry. It's estimated that just 15 percent of this wasted food would be enough to feed more than 25 million Americans every year. “It’s obvious they haven’t done enough – or we wouldn’t have the food waste we do in this country – and no one would be hungry,” concludes Dr. Palma