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To urban people, getting fresh food from the supermarket on a daily basis sounds like the normal thing to do, but this lifestyle is actually creating large amounts of solid waste while many people in the rest of the world are still suffering from hunger every day.

The art exhibition, held in Beijing's 798 art zone, interprets hunger, poverty, and food in a visually impressive way. The sculpture is named Beggar. [Zhang Fang/China.org.cn]

During an art exhibition held in Beijing, Hong Kong writer Leila Chen told audiences how close the hunger issue can get to any individual.

"Supermarkets dump considerable amounts of food at the end of each day to assure their customers of daily fresh supplies," Chen explained. "But we could avoid these situations, or at least improve them, in several ways."

According to the 2011 Food and Agriculture Organization report, an estimated 925 million people in the world, 13.1 percent or almost 1 in 7 people, are enduring the hardships of famine. In China, about 10 percent of the population is currently undernourished.

Those figures are usually a far cry from those among people residing in the urban, and most of the rural areas. This art exhibition, held by Oxfam Hong Kong (OHK), aims to interpret hunger, poverty, and food in a visually impressive way, and introduce audiences to a concept called food justice.

The aim of food justice is to ensure that the benefits and risks of where, what, and how food is grown, produced and eaten, are shared fairly, according to Food Justice, a book written by two directors of Occidental College, an institute based on Los Angeles.

"But the international food system doesn't work the way food justice does," said Derk Byvanck, economic justice manager of the OHK, "Nearly 1 billion people are suffering from famine while enough food is being produced. And the most hungry are the farmers in developing countries who actually produce the food."

In a new exhibition held in Beijing, 16 Chinese artists use art to interpret world famine. People often tend to overlook the fact that almost 1 billion people across the world are going hungry on a daily basis. [China.org.cn]

In China, farmers are also vulnerable to resource scarcity, extreme weather conditions, and need the help very badly. But the concept of food security is a bit different in China from that on an international level, said Zhu Qizhen, professor from China Agriculture University.

He stated that food security aims to make food affordable and available to all globally. In China however, the government has been able to produce almost all the staple grain its people need over the past 30 years.

"We are able to feed and clothe our people now, but the waste of food becomes a prominent issue when farmers are still suffering from poverty." Zhu said. "When we produce enough food for most of people, waste becomes inevitable."

Food justice is hard to adhere to from the process of producing to that of consuming. "What we should do is to let consumers get the food directly from its producer. Producing less will lead to wasting less." Zhu said. "But it's more complicated in reality."

China's agriculture is facing an increasing pressure from its growing population, shrinking resources and climate change.

Currently, China feeds around 20 percent of the world's population with only 7.9 percent of its arable land and 6.5 percent of its freshwater, according to a report released by OHK.

Chen wrote a book last year about leftover food in Hong Kong, also agreeing that food processing is a major waste of food. From farming, factory production to purchasing, every process loses a part of the original food.

"It does make sense in some ways, like to guarantee food safety and quality, but it still remains a huge waste. Creating a direct line from producer to consumer, would be a better solution."

Coming back to the topic of supermarket waste, Chen said, "We could recycle the leftovers from the supermarket or at least donate the still edible items to those who need them. That's the least we can do to fix this off balanced planet."

The exhibition collects the works of 16 Chinese artists in order to address the problems Chinese farmers face through paintings, sculptures and other artistic activities. The event will take place in Beijing's 798 Art Zone from Aug. 11 to 20.

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