人们普遍知道——或者应该知道——环境和食物以同样的速度前进。保护环境而损害初级生产是不可想象的，正如破坏生产而损害环境是不可想象的一样。这表明，至少应始终考虑两方面的问题:一方面，保持二项食物环境的自然平衡不变;另一方面，大规模农业——通常是基于生物燃料的生产，并不总是安全的转基因生物的生产，或者更简单地说，大量用于出口——的协调应该得到最谨慎的评估。当然，最后一个方面阻碍了小型生产，损害了较弱的经济，特别是发展中国家的经济。不仅。例如，最近，根西岛(英吉利海峡的一个小岛)的番茄生产商发起抗议，指出全球、地中海和中国番茄给他们的业务带来了不可持续性。这个例子清楚地表明，广泛的生产如何使小型地方经济和生物多样性都面临危险，而生物多样性是鉴于可持续发展必须加以保护的一个基本方面。当然，考虑到到2050年，世界将有90亿人需要养活——这个时刻即将到来——上述所说的可能显得不合情理，与现实脱节。但事实并非如此。 The sustainability of our Planet can be guaranteed only if there is a perfect equilibrium between food and environment. As I already stated many times before, it’s not the earth that must produce more, but humans that must obtain more from what the earth produces. The reduction of food wastes can largely contribute to maintain this equilibrium, just like the development of local circuits and the variety of traditional products supported by Slow Food, as recently reported even by FAO’s Director General José Graziano Da Silva in a speech at a Conference organized by the European Commission in Brussels. But then, inexorably, technology must come to our aid, with enhanced processing efficiency, reduced energy consumption, rationalisation of water cycles and, even more, innovations contributing to a global – or almost global – transformation of primary productions, and even by developing new food products. “Of the pig, nothing is thrown away”, is constantly repeated by all those who raise and process the meat of these simple and amiable animals. This is an example worth following: Can technology pursue this aim for other food productions? I want to reply that not only it is possible, but it’s worth a try. I’m thinking of the primary processing of fruit and tomatoes, as well as of the secondary production sectors of pasta, just to mention a few examples. Well then, at the beginning of the year, like everyone, let’s formulate our resolutions, laying down, for the food industry of our Planet, the wish that 2014 will be the year during which “… nothing gets thrown away”.
