Wasting food shows system is not working

From: Matthew Shaw, Golcar, Huddersfield.

It is a profoundly depressing statistic that five million tons of bought food was wasted last year, costing a dizzying £13.7bn (Yorkshire Post, April 9).

It seems that our eyes are bigger than our ever-expanding waistlines. We are so privileged to be part of such a rich, bloated society where we have far more food than can comfortably be consumed.

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Mercifully, few of us know what it’s like to go hungry, in fact many believe “starving” is what happens if you don’t snack between meals.

The grocery industry is controlled by a handful of mega companies with impressive supply chains, their shelves endlessly replenished with produce from across the globe, including poorer countries who should really be providing for their own.

Drawn into making unwise purchases by tempting BOGOF promotions, we struggle home with bulging bags where approximately two thirds of it will end up in our stomachs, the rest goes in the bin en-route to the landfill.

Something has gone wrong, horribly wrong.

From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton.

THE idiots in charge of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy – closely followed by Defra – are once again proving that the inmates are fully in charge of the asylum. Never in living memory have such hare-brained schemes been allowed to be even considered.

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Do they not realise the most simple fact of all, that food is a necessity of life?

We can live without almost anything else. Food, after fresh air and clean water, must be the next priority.

Good agricultural land, has been, and still is, being used for a variety of purposes other than the production of food.

These actions, by the powers that be, could all be a massive ploy in order to introduce the unnatural, manipulated by “clever” humans, GM alternatives.

Joy of learning is now missing

From: John Davies, Alma Terrace, East Morton, Keighley.

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JUDGING by your article “Education cheats sabotage schools system” (Yorkshire Post, April 16), it would appear that we have an educational system that brings out the worst in everyone, from headteachers who play the system to score the highest number of points for their school, though teachers who “over-aid” pupils and parents who work around the allocation process to get their children into desirable schools, to students and pupils who plagiarise work.

“There’s something rotten in the state of … education”. Could it be the narrow instrumentalist view that sees it as a process of collecting qualifications to get a better job? Or, might it be its manifest bias towards children from well-off families?

There seems to be little about the joy of learning, so that it becomes a self-motivated, life-long process that widens horizons and contributes hugely to self-development.

Libya: We never learn

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Acomb ,York.

UNBELIEVABLY stupid. Here we go again. Britain, virtually bankrupt, is now sending Army officers to “advise” the Libyan “rebel” forces.

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Foreign Secretary William Hague claims that they will not be arming the rebels and are not “boots on the ground”.

That may be so right now, but what of the future? It will now be even harder and more costly to get out. We just never learn.

Only the very sensible Nato nations like Germany and Turkey see all the pitfalls.

From: David W Wright, Easingwold.

WHAT on earth is Dave “Save the world” Cameron playing at?

His latest scheme to send military advisers to Libya beggars belief, and one has to question the Government’s logic and motives in getting embroiled in the internal affairs of the country.

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We cannot sort out the mess in Afghanistan. Having previously become involved in the Iraq war, we surely should by now have learnt some lessons about poking our noses in the volatile affairs of Middle Eastern countries who have entirely different cultures and standards to those in the West.

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

PRIME Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague must share a death wish by sending military officers into Libya to “advise” the opponents to Gadaffi rule.

What happens if one of the officers is killed? Send in troops to avenge his death and to catch the culprits.

Then more soldiers, when some of the troops are shot dead. Where will it stop?