Saving food is more efficient than increasing food production

HUMANS waste 1.3 billion tons of food each year. On average of one-third of food for human consumption gets lost or wasted, which, if we were to scoop a cup of rice would be like throwing out more than 5 tablespoons before we even put the rice on our plate.

This inevitably means that also one-third of the resources used in food production are used in vain, points out a study by The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK), and one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by food production are in vain. That's not the worse of it, says the report on Global Food Losses and Food Waste. Losses worldwide in fruits & vegetables and roots & tubers are even higher and range from 40 to 55 percent.

The report was commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) from August 2010 to January 2011, and was read at the international congress "SAVE FOOD", a joint initiative of the FAO and Messe Düsseldorf GmbH in May.

Three medium- and high-income regions were covered in the report: Europe including Russia, North America & Oceania, and Industrialised Asia (Japan, South Korea and China). The four low-income regions covered in the report were: Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa & Western & Central Asia, South & Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
Apart from fruits & vegetables and roots & tubers, five other commodity groups - cereals, oilseeds & pulses, meat, fish & seafood, and dairy products - were tracked through five stages in the food supply chain: agricultural production, postharvest handling and storage, processing and packaging, distribution (wholesale and retail), and consumption.

Food is wasted both in high- and medium-income countries and in low-income countries. The study results show that per capita food waste by consumers in Europe and North America is 95 to 115 kg/year, whilst this figure in Sub-Saharan Africa and South & Southeast Asia is only 6 to 11 kg/year.

Unnecessary waste

The causes of food losses and waste in medium/high-income countries mainly connect to consumer behaviour as well as lack of communication between different actors in the supply chain.

Consumers in wealthier countries tend to throw away food even if it is still suitable for human consumption. At the consumption level, insufficient purchase planning and an exaggerated concern towards 'best-before-dates' also cause large amounts of waste, in combination with a careless attitude of consumers who can afford to waste food.
Food can be wasted due to quality standards, which reject food items not perfect in shape or appearance.

Significant food loss and waste do however also occur early in the food supply chain. Farmers often feel pressured to deliver according to agreements with suppliers to contractor supermarkets, causing discrepancies between offer and demand. In case of surplus production, both contractor agreements and agricultural subsidies may contribute to large portions of farm crops ending up wasted and ploughed back in the soil.

Limitations in low-income countries

Food is lost in low-income countries during the early and middle stages of the food supply chain; much less food is wasted at consumer level.
The causes are mainly connected to financial and technical limitations in harvest technique, storage and cooling facilities, infrastructure, packaging and marketing systems. These limitations in combination with the prevalent climatic conditions cause large amounts of food to get spoiled.

Steps to take

Food waste in industrialized countries can be reduced by an increased awareness among food industries, retailers and consumers. The 'disposing is cheaperLebron James Shoes