SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction

Caribbean experts strategize for a reduction in Jamaica’s food losses and waste

© Miguel Herrera/FAO
06 Nov 2017

Jamaican food and agriculture stakeholders promoted a zero-tolerance approach to food losses and waste during a workshop with regional experts convened from November 1-3, 2017 in Kingston, Jamaica. The experts met to offset the development of a national strategy for enhancing the governance of food losses and waste prevention and reduction in Jamaica.

The Technical Workshop on Enhancing the Governance of Food Losses and Waste Prevention and Reduction: The Case of Jamaica hosted over 40 members of Jamaica’s public and private sectors, academia and civil society along with regional experts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and public and private sector agencies in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to focal group discussions, the participants spent two days in the field experiencing first-hand some of the farming and distribution areas, to later mull over the best approach and elements of a national strategy for establishing legal frameworks and creating opportunities for preventing and reducing food losses and waste in Jamaica.

A recent report by FAO shows that 20 – 30% of national domestic food production is lost annually, equivalent to JMD $7 billion.

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