Are we Really in Crisis? Slovenians Discard Over 80 Kilos of Food Per Capita
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN chose to focus this year's World Food Day on "Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition", underlining also the strong impact of inappropriate nutrition in the society.
The Public Health Institute of Slovenia(IVZ) thus stressed that the rapidly increasing child and youth obesity in Slovenia is leading to a lower quality of life and increase the probability of chronic non-infectious diseases.
Along with the quality of nutrition, sustainable and healthy food supply is also becoming an increasingly important issue.
According to estimates of the Slovenian Agriculture Institute, Slovenia's aggregate food self-sufficiency stands between 68% and 75%.
Conditions in Slovenia, like high forest coverage, dispersed ownership of land plots, terrain and soil, make it hard for the country to improve its self-sufficiency in crops like wheat and sugar beet, but Slovenia already has relatively high self-sufficiency levels in livestock, milk, poultry, wine and hop production.
Food costs make up an important share in the family budget in Slovenia, especially in lower-income households. Survey data thus show that food and non-alcoholic beverage costs in 2010 were the highest among all household costs, accounting for 15%.
The average retail price of white bread fell in the 2008-2012 period by 5%, while the average price of whole-wheat bread remained roughly level. Retail prices of beef increased by almost 16% in this period and the price of apples fell by 17%.
A survey of the Statistics Office on living conditions shows that around 87% of households in Slovenia in 2008-2011 were able, according to their disposable income, to afford a meat or equivalent vegetarian meal at least every two days, as a standard for measuring material deprivation.