LIMA, PERU APEC MINISTERIAL MEETING Session 2: Sustainable growth for a resilient development

What would be the best policy options to improve our efforts to reduce food loss and waste in the Asia Pacific region?

Except for a few hotspots, the Asia and the Pacific region has eradicated hunger with less than 1.7 percent of its population impacted by caloric deficiency.

However, access to healthy diets remains insufficient, with 18.1 percent of the population that cannot afford healthy diets.

At the same time, the hidden costs of agrifood systems represent 8.5 percent of GDP – with 80 percent of the hidden costs being health-related. 

We urgently need to reduce food loss and waste to tackle current and future challenges, and to achieve the Four Betters.

It will help deliver a better environment, by saving natural resources; better nutrition, by improving access to healthy, but perishable products; and a better life, by improving the income of food producers and life quality.

The global value of food lost between harvest and retail amounted to USD 400 billion. Furthermore, 1.4 billion hectares of crop land and pasture area, and 250 cubic kilometers of water were used for growing food that is eventually lost and wasted.

These figures tend to be higher for fruits and vegetables, with global losses in fruits and vegetables amounting to about 30 percent, in contrast to 7 percent for cereals and pulses.

To fix this problem, we need to take action to deliver better production all along the value chains, targeting specific hotspots of losses and using innovation and technology, and investment in value chain infrastructure, and introducing enabling policies to reduce them.

For instance, the highest level of food loss for fruits and vegetables takes place in the transportation phase in Central and South Asia, which can reach up to 25 percent, while in East and Southeast Asia, the rate of losses is the highest in the storage and processing stage (20 percent), and packaging stage (12 percent).

To effectively target commodities and stages along the value chains requires investment in data collection, and FAO has developed tools to facilitate this data collection, and to scale up efforts.

The FAO Food Loss Index, and the FAO Food Loss App are examples of knowledge for action and targeted results. The Food Loss App will also make significant strides in enhancing FAO’s ability to analyze where and why food losses take place at the farm level by utilizing crowd-sourced information from farmers, and by supporting efforts by countries and partners towards achieving SDG 12.3, and its indicators, especially the one aimed at reducing food losses - SDG 12.3.1.

Thank you.

How can we guarantee a just energy transition for economies and all sectors of societies at the same time?

A Just transition is essential for sustainable growth and for resilient development. It is particularly important to address the issues of climate, energy and environmental transitions in the context of agrifood systems. 

Our agrifood systems need to be transformed to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable, to enable feeding a global population of almost 10 billion by 2050, while adapting to climate change and not exceeding the 1.5 degrees threshold of global warming.    

This transformation must occur with the full recognition that decarbonization by mid-century is simply not possible without investing in agrifood systems and rural areas. In particular, on the use of energy that is needed at every stage of the agrifood system.

Producing enough food for the world - from fields to food markets - comprises about 30% of all energy consumed, and over a third of greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems are the result of energy use.

Agrifood systems are vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, as we have witnessed in the past few years, while also being significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. We need to reverse this trend.

A radical transformation in how food is produced, processed, traded and consumed is required, and this must happen by strengthening the role of agrifood systems as climate solutions.

Achieving climate ambition requires taking into consideration all sectors of society coherently, and a complete change of our energy systems. Due to the scale and magnitude of the changes needed, it is essential to think holistically to create synergies. Many solutions will be at the crossroads between different sectors: fragmented sectoral approaches simply will not work.

This is why FAO released a Global Roadmap at COP28, to Achieve SDG2 without breaching the 1.5-degrees Celsius threshold.

We have integrated the roadmap of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and focused on solutions to make sure we can fulfill the global need for energy and food.

We also positioned the just transition at the center of the transformation of global agrifood systems – just as it should be central in the energy transition.

The APEC region is already moving fast towards the energy transition. The region has succeeded in rapidly scaling up green technologies.

Initiatives, such as the APEC Electric Vehicles Roadmap, aim to harmonize standards and regulations, thereby facilitating the broader use of Electric Vehicles across various sectors, including agriculture.

However, it is essential to consider the potential unintended consequences of developing some promising energy sources: acting fast is important, acting strategically is even more important!

Transformation is systemic in nature, and it is not only about producing more, but innovating the way we produce - to produce more with less.

To achieve this, we need an integrated approach and international coordination.

The Just Transition principle should be prioritized to make sure that no country, or individual is left behind, especially youth and women in the rural areas.

In particular, in the APEC region, Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) make up 97 percent of the economy and are essential as they provide most of the employment and new jobs, and are major contributors to value creation.

Their contribution is even greater when informal businesses are taken into account, and we need to actively include them. They should be supported with the right tools, right technologies, right policy incentives, and while ensuring access to finance.

It is essential to ensure incentives are aligned with climate ambition, and we need to invest in innovations to achieve improved productivity.

Financial support to SMEs is essential in the transition to ensure they can uptake innovations.

Innovations that should favour co-generation and knowledge-sharing approaches between relevant partners to ensure a just transition. 

Thank you.

How fast can we scale up the benefits of promising energy sources, such as clean and low carbon hydrogen, in our region?

One-third of world’s food is lost or wasted annually, and with it the related energy used in the sector, together with the associated greenhouse gas emissions.

The lack of effective cold chain systems directly results in the loss of 526 million tons of food production, or 12 percent of the global total. 

In a world where the number of hungry people is rising, we cannot permit the loss of tonnes of edible food.

Access to reliable and affordable green energy solutions is a pre-requisite to establishing cold chains to guarantee better storage,

Thereby ensuring products are kept at suitable and science-based conditions along the food chain. 

These are clear examples of how Energy-smart agrifood systems solutions are key solutions to the food and climate crisis.

These solutions can be implemented in four main ways:

One: annual clean energy investments worldwide will need to triple by 2030 to reach USD 4 trillion if we want to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

This includes a substantial increase in renewable and sustainable energy in agrifood systems. Recent FAO analysis indicates that at present less than 4 percent of climate finance overall, and only 18 percent of climate tagged development finance, goes towards these solutions.

Two: agriculture, agrifood solutions and energy-smart agrifood systems approaches need to be better integrated and prioritized within national policies and National Determined Contributions.

Three: we need to support farmers to put in place innovative, green energy solutions to improve productivity and reduce food loss and waste through improved farming and post-harvest practices, including sustainable bioenergy, as well as through renewable energy technologies for irrigation and cold chains.  

And Four: there must be a just energy transition in the agrifood sector, to ensure equal access to the energy services and technologies they require.

FAO is committed to ensure equitable access to sustainable energy to help agrifood system actors adapt to climate change, improve productivity, support job creation, gender equality, local and rural development, and to reduce hunger and poverty.

We need to recognize the critical role and potential of agrifood systems.

Regional cooperation can play an important role in facilitating commitments and efforts to move forward.

By charting a new course for collaboration on climate and energy transition in agrifood systems, we can harness their potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, while ensuring food security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability for future generations.

Over the last twenty years, FAO has been facilitating access to sustainable modern energy, working closely with governments and partners.

This is fundamental for the transformation of agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable, to achieve the Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.   

Universal access to clean and reliable energy services is critical for sustainable growth, a resilient development and food security.

Thank you.