Dear FSN Forum members,
in our little book on How to End Hunger in Times of Crisis, Ignacio and I had proposed a Global Mechanism to Cut Food Waste and Over-consumption, based on principles similar to those that underlie the design of the Clean Development Mechanism. The idea is that affected countries would voluntarily set themselves time-bound targets for
Cutting waste and over-consumption and put in place programmes of their choice designed to achieve these goals. To the extent that they failed to meet their reduction targets, they would be able to buy entitlements to over-consume from under-consuming countries which would be required to use the funds for certified investments support of their hunger reduction programmes. The assumption is that – as in the case of programmes for alcohol and tobacco reduction, behavioural change would occur more slowly than intended and that the mechanism would, therefore, raise considerable resources. In countries that consider using differential rates of taxation on foods as an inducement to reduce over-consumption, the resulting revenue could be applied to meet the costs of purchasing entitlements through the Mechanism.
The attachment (copied from our book) offers a fuller explanation of the proposal.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Andrew MacMillan