Sir John Beddington warns of world food crisis. Here's three steps you can take to help

This morning the Government's chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington discussed the threat of a world food crisis. A billion people today are hungry. The population is rising rapidly. A new report says that farmers, politicians, economists and scientists need to think how to make food production more efficient and deal with the problems of water and energy.

Our UK awards manager, Mike Pepler, says there are three steps that each of us could take to help.

Don’t waste food. Food that is thrown away has not just wasted the food, but everything that went into producing it, including water, fertiliser, pesticides, diesel (for farm machinery and transporting it), electricity (for refrigeration), packaging and also the energy you use at home to refrigerate and cook it.

Eat less meat. Producing meat requires much greater input of fossil fuels than producing other food, and has a corresponding higher emission of greenhouse gases. It also takes up more land area, as animals are often fed crops that could have been eaten by people, so the more meat we eat, the less food is available in total.

Grow your own. Growing a bit of food at home can be quite easy, and you have the option to do it organically by avoiding any use of chemicals. You’ll also have no food miles, as it only has to travel a few steps to your kitchen.