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Every year, the world loses or wastes one-third of its food. This means that around 14% of the world’s food is lost between harvest and retail. Huge amounts of food are also wasted at the retail and consumer levels. According to FAO, around 870 million people in the world do not have enough to eat – these numbers are simply mind-boggling. In fact, according to a study commissioned by FAO to calculate these numbers, saving just one quarter of the food that is lost or wasted could end global hunger. The findings have drawn global attention to the need to make food production systems more efficient. In parallel, FAO has launched the Save Food global initiative, a coalition of partners from the public and private sectors dedicated to reducing loss and waste.
When the food packaging industry chose food loss and food waste as the theme of its 2011 international trade fair, it approached FAO seeking an authoritative study to highlight the importance of the issue. The goal was to quantify the amount of agricultural products that are lost or wasted in the food chain and to identify ways that the packaging industry could help reduce it. While people are certainly aware of the dire impact that loss and waste have on food security, this would be the first study to tally global figures.
When the study was completed, it was found that losses and waste from farm to fork are enormous – enough, in fact, to feed the world’s 870 million hungry people four times over. In response, trade show organizer Messe Düsseldorf has added a global conference on the topic to its 2011 edition of Interpack.
It invited representatives of the public and private sectors to a meeting on 16-17 May 2011 to discuss how to work together to reduce this intolerable waste. The meeting, called Save Food, inspired participants to establish broad partnerships and global initiatives to reduce loss and waste.
Today, this partnership has grown into the SAVE FOOD initiative, led by FAO with the participation of more than 150 public and private sector partners, as well as sister UN food agencies, the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), all committed to bringing their expertise and technical know-how to work together to find new ways to make the world’s food systems more efficient.
Food loss is different from food waste
With guidance from FAO, Save Food has set up a field project to study supply chains in developing countries and provide advice to governments on how to make them more efficient.
In developing countries, food losses occur along the production chain, hitting smallholder farmers the hardest. FAO estimates that 30-40% of total production may be lost before reaching the market due to problems such as improper use of inputs and lack of adequate post-harvest storage, processing or transportation facilities. Losses can be as high as 40-50% for root crops, fruits and vegetables, up to 30% for cereals and fish, and up to 20% for oilseeds.
In industrialized countries, waste refers to food that has already reached the market. The shopping habits of wealthy consumers, who have a “one-time mentality” and buy more food than their families can eat, are only part of the problem. Waste also includes overproduction, often due to crop subsidies that cause supply to exceed demand, and safe food to be removed from the market or supermarket shelves due to strict regulations. If you add it all up, consumers in Europe and North America waste nearly 10 kilograms per person per month, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia don’t even waste that much in a year.
Loss and waste affect the economy and the environment
In the bigger picture, this waste, whether it’s production loss or retail waste, reduces the supply of food in the market. This in turn can lead to higher prices, especially in developing countries, where consumers cannot afford such increases. At the same time, when this food is wasted, all the energy and resources (such as land and water) that went into growing or producing it are also wasted.
It is heartbreaking to see such huge amounts of food lost along the farm-to-fork production chain, as food production must double to meet the global population, which is expected to grow from 7 billion today to 9 billion by 2050. Overall, this is a situation the world cannot afford, and SAVE FOOD’s partners acknowledge this, taking it upon themselves to find ways to make production more efficient and, in turn, more food secure around the world.
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