Waste Not, Want Not
Thursday, June 09, 2011
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Food waste is a significant global challenge – but how food is wasted depends largely on context. One third of all food produced is wasted, says a recent report from The
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Food is
lost at every stage, from initial production, through the supply chain,
the retail stage, and finally at the household level.
In
developing countries 630 million tonnes of food is lost in agricultural
production, mostly due to substantial post-harvest losses caused by
inadequate storage facilities and poor marketing and distribution
channels. Much less is wasted in household consumption.
In
medium and high income countries about 220 million tonnes of food is
lost at the household level. This loss is the equivalent of the total
net food produced in Sub Saharan Africa. Here in Canada approximately 40
percent of food produced is wasted along the food chain. More than 50
percent of this waste is through consumer behavior – food thrown away in
Canadian homes. According to the FAO report, people in high income
countries waste food because, financially, they can afford to; perhaps
in terms of environmental costs, they cannot.
Wasting food also
means wasting resources used in food production. This means that
enormous amounts of resources used in food production are exploited in
vain, including the greenhouse gas emissions caused by producing food
that is wasted. In a world with limited resources (land, water, energy),
and a growing population, cost-effective solutions must be set up to
produce enough safe and nourishing food for all. Reducing food losses is
a place to start.
From the standpoint of small-scale farmers in
developing countries, a simple but strong investment in infrastructure
to store and transport food would minimize losses, which world would
have an immediate impact on food security, since many small-scale
farmers live on the margins of food insecurity. In high income countries
food wastage must be curbed through changes in consumer behavior.
Reducing food wastage is a step towards everyone in the world having enough to eat.
Terence Z. Sibanda is on a one year internship with Canadian Foodgrains
Bank through the International Voluntary Exchange Program. Since
arriving in Canada last fall, he has spoken to over 5000 people about
food security and agriculture in his home country, Zimbabwe.
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