On 4 December 2014, FAO and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) launched a technical platform on the measurement of food loss and waste. Scores of representatives from the development community and the Group of Twenty (G20) converged on FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy for the official opening of the on-line platform to the public.
Read more...

This paper uses scenario analyses to investigate how reductions in food loss and waste in the European Union could influence prices in sub-Saharan Africa as a source and destination of traded agricultural and food products. The analysis provides insights into the potential impacts in terms of medium- to long-term global and local price changes in sub-Saharan Africa and the mechanisms behind them – changes in production, consumption and trade patterns. Read more...

As a side-event at the Forty-second Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 15 October 2015, FAO and the Governments of Brazil and Italy co-organized a Dialogue on Access, Recovery and Redistribution of Food: Actions to expand food supply and reduce food losses and waste (FLW). Read more...

The Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) is an international conference that focuses on central questions concerning the future of the global agrifood industry. FAO is organizing an expert panel discussion on “Promotion of urban food security and nutrition through redistribution of food at risk of loss or waste”. GFFA 2016 will take place in Berlin, Germany on 14–16 January 2016. Read more...

The theme of the international workshop held on 18–19 November 2015 in Bogor, Indonesia was Reducing Food Loss and Food Waste. The Government of Indonesia has identified targets for achieving national self-sufficiency in seven food commodities, rice, maize, soybean, meat, sugar cane, chilli and tomatoes. Indonesia’s Ministry of Agriculture is currently implementing the national UPSUS programme, which aims to increase productivity and production while reducing yield losses. Read more...

UNFCCC COP 21 in Paris, 1 December 2015 - Governments and food and agriculture organizations convened at the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) focus on Agriculture to respond to the urgent climate challenges facing agriculture with cooperative initiatives that will protect the long-term livelihoods of millions of farmer and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is one of the sectors most seriously affected by extreme climate but it also accounts for 24 percent of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which cause climate change. The initiatives focus on four key areas: soils in agriculture, the livestock sector, food losses and waste, and sustainable production methods and resilience of farmers. Read more...

FAO’s Food Wastage Footprint (FWF) model indicates that the contribution of pulses to total food waste – including their carbon and blue water footprints – is low in all regions, making pulses an environmentally friendly source of key nutrients. Pulses are also highly water-efficient, especially in comparison with other sources of protein. Read more...

On 2 December 2015 in Brussels, Belgium, the European Commission adopted the European Union (EU) Action Plan for the Circular Economy. This ambitious new package aims to boost competitiveness, create jobs and generate sustainable growth. Actions include developing a common measurement methodology, improving date marking, establishing a platform on food waste, and developing tools for meeting the global Sustainable Development Goal of halving food waste by 2030. Read more...

France has passed a bill forcing supermarkets to donate food that is approaching its best-before date in an attempt to reduce the estimated 7 million tonnes of food wasted in the country each year. But France is not the only European country with high rates of food waste. Read more...

When world leaders met in Paris in December 2015 to agree on a global agreement for tackling climate change, the issues addressed included scaling up sustainable energy, forest conservation and food production. An area that still needs more attention is reducing food losses and waste. Read more...

The 2015 World Cold Chain Summit was co-organized by Carrier and United Technologies Corporation under the theme of “Utilizing the cold chain to reduce food waste”. The summit took place on 2-3 December 2015 in Singapore and convened representatives from private companies (from the refrigeration and food sector), international organizations and research institutions. The summit addressed ways to reduce food waste by improving cold chain infrastructure. Given the timing and theme of the event, the agenda was shaped around the global climate policy debate and how food waste reduction through sustainable refrigeration deployment can reduce GHG emissions and improve food security. Read more...

Food Use for Social Innovation by Optimising Waste Prevention Strategies (FUSIONS), the European-funded food waste prevention project, has developed criteria and a baseline for assessing the environmental and socio-economic impacts of food waste. Although this research shows that there are still major data gaps, its findings provide an overview of existing knowledge and indicate ways of proceeding towards a more comprehensive assessment of the impacts of food waste.
Read more...

In December 2015, prominent chefs from Thailand and Australia used ingredients that are usually discarded to prepare meals for people in Bangkok, raising awareness of food waste during the Think.Eat.Save event. This event was organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), FAO and the Australian food charity OzHarvest in support of the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals target of halving global food waste along production and supply chains by 2030.
Read more...

“Wasted food is becoming important to industry, to universities, to non-profits, and to government, and the confluence of those will change behaviour for the better,” says Sustainable America Executive Director Jeremy Kranowitz. Read more...

Often despised for failing to achieve the standards of beauty imposed by the food industry, ugly fruits and vegetables have become attractive for people seeking to reduce food waste. Read more...

Some degree of food loss is expected in the processing of many crops, particularly grains. In the case of rice, more than 30 percent of the harvested product (the husks or hulls and bran layers) is intentionally removed in the milling process to produce marketable rice. Another 8 percent or so is normally broken in the milling process and marketed as such.
Read more...