- The 20th edition of UNEP’s Foresight Brief highlights the challenges, possible solutions and their benefits the sphere of food loss and waste – one of the key challenges in creating a sustainable food and agriculture sector.
- Food loss and waste, occurring on different stages of food production, distribution and consumption cycles, is now a truly global phenomenon. It results in humanity losing about one-third of total food produce and ca. ¼ of its caloric value. The effects of such a situation lead to wasted social and economic opportunities, as well as environmental degradation due to rising pressure on ecosystems stemming from the need for agricultural land. The brief addresses the various reasons for food loss and waste across the world, offering both habit nudges and policy changes that may lead to better practices by farmers, retailers or consumers.
- At first glance, food loss and waste seems self-explanatory and therefore can be perceived as a simple challenge: we just need to limit its amount. SDG 12.3 includes the clear direction of halving food waste and reducing food loss by 2030, though the causes and solutions are varied at different levels of the value chain. A key obstacle is the lack of data, as very few (15 or so) countries worldwide have published food waste baselines at the household or retail levels. Data enables governments to understand the scale of the problem, present the business case for action, target food waste hotspots in the supply chain, and track their progress towards SDG 12.3.
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