Le froid, élément de la sécurité alimentaire dans le monde

Abstract

Improving food security is now a basic and one of the most difficult problems of world food policy and economy. The problem exists because of the need for faster growth in food resources than population levels, especially in the developing countries where food consumption per capita is very low. If refrigeration processes can be constantly adjusted in form to meet the needs of food economy, they can play an important role in the following areas: food reserves; reducing losses in food production and turn-over; reducing seasonal variations; international food trade development; increasing the possibilities for the world fish economy; and frozen food production. The building up of foof resources and consequent stabilizing of the world's food situation became possible mainly through the existence of cold stores. The total volume of all multi- and one-branch cold stores can be estimated as ap; 1.5 × 10 8 m 3. The USA, Japan, USSR, Canada, UK, France and FRG are among the major shareholders of this global potential. This volume could provide storage for 4 × 10 7 tons of food requiring refrigeration. This is the equivalent to 10 days food production in the world. Further development of cold storage is, therefore, necessary. Although the exact estimation of losses from food production and turn-over is very difficult, many experts evaluate these losses as ⩾ 20–30%. Some of these experts estimate tthat wide-spread use of refrigeration could save 2.5 × 10 8 tons of food from deterioration per year. This is equivalent to 80 kg for each person in the world. A decrease in seasonal variation in food production is necessary to adapt seasonal food production to constant consumption. Cold storage can allow a gap of several months between food production and its consumption. Refrigeration has enabled the development of large-scale international and intercontinental food trade. At present > 3 × 10 7 tons of food per year is involved in world trade (i.e. meat, butter, bananas). After World War 2 the total weight of fish caught increased very quickly from 1.9 × 10 7 tons in 1948 to 7.2 × 10 7 tons in 1980. This was possible only because of the application of refrigeration, especially at sea in large oceans. Frozen food production is seen by some as the biggest achievement of the twentieth century in food technology. Production of frozen food has been estimated as ap; 3.0 × 10 7 tons per year, exclusive of the 1.0 × 10 7 tons of ice-cream. Increased world food security depends on refrigeration techniques developing at a faster rate than population growth, as well as the growth rate of world food production.