Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

In the past ten years my expertise has focused on ethnographic research methods exploring human ecological problems such as food waste. My latest research project on food waste in the retail business has provided me with key insight to contribute research ideas on strategically designed communications strategies between retailers and consumers that can influence wasteful behaviors. Retailers are in a strategic position to influence consumption patterns through little nudges that can lead to a collective behavioral change. A sign reading “Bananas for Banana Bread” can completely undo the complex problem of when to replace day-old bananas on display with ones on the verge of decay. Our team of social consultants at Spora Sinergies, work collaboratively with Citizen and Multi-stakeholder Participatory Research Methodologies, leading to suggestions for innovative strategies the food industry can implement to solve the uncertainty of the market system while best satisfying the needs of consumers.

www.spora.ws

Vijay Yadav. T, Postharvest Education Foundation (Trainee), India.

Out of all basic necessities of human being food is the most important necessity.  It is very unfortunate that a huge amount of food in the world is being wasted daily, while there are millions of people in world who are dying of hunger. There is an urgent and serious need to prevent food wastage/food loss, whatever level it may be.

Many factors at different levels are responsible for Food Loss/ Food Wastage:

i.        Field Level:

·         Over Production: Improper production strategy of farmers would result in over production which ultimately leads to wastage and also very low returns to the farmer.

·         Mono-cropping in large areas: Growing single crop in large areas at a stretch may lead to production more than needed leading to wastage.

·         Improper cultivation practices: Lack of proper knowledge about cultivation, harvesting and package, lot of food grains, fruits and vegetables are lost.

Remedy:

·         Crop Diversification: Growing different type of crops in an area.

·         Enlighten farmers about advances in cultivation practices of different crops along with care to be taken while harvesting and also after harvest.

·         There should be a government policy to plan production strategy for farmers, to decide crop area based upon demand in the nation.

ii.       Post Harvest:

·         Judging proper maturity indices, based upon market availability would prevent food loss to great extent.

·         Enlightening farmers about proper post harvest, packing, storage techniques depending upon on crop, climate and demand would play a very important role in reducing food loss during storage and transport.

·         Conducting campaigns and courses to increase processing of over produced fruits, vegetables and grains into ready to eat products.

·         Grading of produce depending upon quality and market them based upon demand.

iii.     Market Level:

·         Encouraging market facility to diversified crops.

·         Strong policies are needed to prevent illegal storage of grains (which is common situation in developing countries).

·         Policy to decide price based upon grading, which would allow producer to get good price for his quality produce and also population of different economic status to get good food.

iv.     Consumer Level:

·         Educate people to prevent domestic food wastage by conducting campaigns in communities, schools, colleges and other public places.

·         Make a strong policy to prevent food wastage by levying extra tax on people wasting food in the restaurants.

·         A rule must be passed to make it compulsory to provide sample food before taking order in restaurants so that it is not wasted after being ordered.

·         Linking up restaurants with needy orphanages, juvenile homes etc… so that extra food can be transferred and not wasted.

All the countries in the world should come up onto single platform not only to prevent food wastage but also to maintain balance in food availability in different parts of world. International policies must in such a way to prevent wastage of excess of food in few countries and supply the excess to needy malnutrition and hungry nations.

Other useful links:

http://www.imeche.org/knowledge/themes/environment/global-food

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/

Compreender a importância do desperdício de alimentos na garantia da segurança alimentar e nutricional e da sustentabilidade do planeta, requer cada vez mais estudos e pesquisas na área. O desperdício no Brasil, e em especial na Bahia de onde falo, é muito visível, pois desde a produção rural até o conumo final observamos perdas que poderiam ser a proveitadas ao longo do processo fornecendo nutrientes e reduzindo a presença de materiais orgânicos nos sistemas ambientais. Entende-se, portato, que a maior questão do aproveitamento dos alimentos e redução de desperdício se fortalece com políticas educativas no tema e com o papel dos profissionais envolvidos na área, pois muitas vezes o desperdício é elevado porque falta o conhecimento prático aplicado para sua conservação. Entendemos também, que no nosso país, o desperdício não deveria e nem podeira existir visto que temos pessoas na miséria e total pobreza que lutam por um prato de comida diário. Assim compreendemos que desperdiçar além de não ser suetntável também não é humano e nem solidário. Concluo essa breve explainação garantindo que, enquanto as pessoas não obtiverem conhecimento sobre a temática elas continuarão a desperdiçar e isso contribuirá para uma possível elevação da miséria bem como da poluição orgânica da natureza.

At RNE we are working on food losses and waste as a priority, especially after Elhadithe request of our national Conference to reduce to half in 10 years. We have done few activities so far such as an ECM held few weeks ago (see link below).

Report on Expert Consultation on Food losses in NE

Best regards

Elhadi

IIt is true that post harvest losses in countries like Pakistan is at very high end. These losses create frustration in the farming as well as for consumers. Due to insufficient post harvest technology farmers lost their day & night efforts on the other quality has deteriorate and prices are increased. At present all efforts are focus to increase the production and very less efforts are being made to save which you have got after putting struggle on pre harvest phase. Everybody knows how to handle the egg but very less people know how to manage the fresh crop.

Each and every crop has its own post harvest management pattern. If the pattern is followed then losses will at lower level. Frequency of post harvest losses at various stages in different countries are quite different from each other. We need the approach to minimize the post harvest losses in existing varieties and replace these varieties with efficient one, gradually.

Maturity stage is the junction among preservation and losses which directly depends of its’ intend use and market distance from the place of harvesting. This statement is much true for those crops having bigger moisture contents. Farmer should know the right maturity stage prior to harvest.

Other post harvest technology aspects like washing, drying, waxing, grading, packing, pre cooling, storage etc great impact on the shelf life of any fresh commodity but mostly it is highly difficult for small farmers to adopt it. There is need to develop low cost infrastructure for small farmers for their post harvest losses preservation. Small farmers are the unit who can support to minimize these losses.  

Pattern of marketing should change, it should the duty of famer to sale their yield in open market rather than involving third person. This type of practice is well common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Produce should prepare close to the field for marketing.

Immediate processing of crops into various products can minimize the post harvest losses and enable the environment for utilization of defected produce but it needs much more R & D.

Greetings from New Zealand.

I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer Food & Nutrition Advisor in Tanzania from 2010-2012.  I did that under the Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) of New Zealand.

During my two years working there for the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO),  I was impressed by the programs run by SIDO in developing small industries, one of which is Food related.

The main emphasis is to encourage entrepreneurs to start up businesses, some of which are food related.  The outcome of this approach is reduction of food losses at least to some extent.

Please find attached, some of my thoughts that are documented under this heading.

There are several other angles to explore this important topic of Food Sustainability. 

i.e. Food ignorance, food sovereignty.

Happy to provide input in the future if an opportunity arises.

Kind regards

Anne

Dr Anne Perera FNZIFST, FSIFST

Food & Nutrition Consultant

P O Box 87086, Meadowbank

Auckland 1742, New Zealand

The impacts of (reducing) food losses and/or waste: what we do not know

Martine Rutten, LEI Wageningen UR

Recent data (for example, from FAO, 2011) shows that food losses and waste are relatively high, equivalent to 1/3rd of food produced for human consumption. Consequently, as indicated in the  HLPE e-consultation, their global reduction is deemed essential to improve food security.

Whereas the scale of the problem is clear - measured in terms of production, consumption (mouths to feed, nutrients embodied in the waste), money that could have been used for something else, emissions that could have been avoided, water and land implicitly embodied in the waste – the impacts of food losses and waste or, more importantly, the impacts of reducing food losses and waste have not been investigated in detail as yet. This includes the impacts on food security.

Westhoek et al. (2011) is the only applied study so far on the impacts of reducing food waste, discussed in the context of healthy and sustainable diets. It assumes that 15 per cent less food production is required to meet the same level of nutrition, implemented globally as a 15 per cent supply chain efficiency increase and reports on global impacts, rather than using available evidence.

If one wants to understand food losses and waste and the means to reduce them, as requested by the CFS, it is important to also understand their impacts (environmental, social and economic). Relevant questions are, for example:

• What food commodities/products to focus on when reducing food losses and/or waste
• What parts of the food supply chain to focus on?
• How does reducing food losses and/or waste compare to other strategies/policies? (E.g. healthier diets, market access/trade policies, improving the investment climate,...)

Answers to these questions depend on the perspective taken (a focus on resource efficiency in Europe – for example land use, may give different outcomes compared to a focus on food security in developing countries – as measured by the consumption of food and prices paid for it by households).

It is important to note that food losses (operating on the supply side) and food waste (operating on the demand side) have distinctly different impacts. A framework to analyse and structure impacts, showing what factors are important for the outcomes, has been developed recently by Rutten (2013). Using economic theory this paper shows that:

• reductions in food losses and/or waste may improve food security of the wider population due to lower food prices and increased food consumption, if not in the market where losses and/or waste are reduced then elsewhere due to increased spending from savings on previously wasted food.
• Consumers, and producers in other commodity markets, will favour actions to combat food losses and/or waste of a particular food commodity, whereas its producers may object, especially when reducing food waste is concerned as this diminishes their revenues.
• Trade-offs also arise over time, as in the short-run producers may have to incur costs and welfare losses when food losses and/or waste are tackled, whereas the gains, if any, in terms of increased sales may only be realised later. Consumers may delay spending savings on previously wasted foods.
• How these trade-offs compare to the broader trade-offs between economic, health and environmental goals, also across countries, is an issue for policy makers.
• The outcomes of this and further formal and applied analysis are crucially depending on, amongst others, the extent to which losses and/or waste are avoidable, the costs involved, the causes of food losses and waste, including scale and price factors, and consumer preferences.

An important finding is that costs associated with measures to reduce food losses and food waste undo beneficial impacts, but are relatively little researched. Food losses and waste happen for a reason and it may well be that relatively low food prices in comparison with the costs associated with measures to reduce them, may explain their existence. Behavioural change on the part of consumers and producers may not cost that much, but investments in improved storage and transport may cost much more.

Background

These ideas have also been briefly touched upon in a recent LEI Wageningen UR blog, available from: http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/LEI-OPINION-Food-waste-and-food-security-what-do-we-actually-know.htm.

LEI Wageningen UR is currently carrying out a large-scale applied study for DG Environment looking at the impacts of reducing food waste within the EU as part of a broader project relating to the modelling of the impacts of greater resource efficiency. The project is called 'Modelling Milestones for Achieving Resource Efficiency' and is being led by BIO Intelligence Service.

LEI Wageningen UR is also carrying out an applied study on the impacts of reducing food losses in the Middle East and Northern Africa. This work will be presented during the 16th annual Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Conference on Global Economic Analysis "New Challenges for Global Trade in a Rapidly Changing World" in Shangai, 12-14 june, 2013.

https://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/events/conferences/2013/

Previous work at LEI Wageningen UR focused on obstacles experienced in both legislation and regulations by chain actors that cause food waste, resp., make it difficult to reduce food waste (Waarts et al., 2011).

References

FAO (2011), Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention. Study conducted for the International Congress SAVE FOOD! at Interpack 2011, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Rutten, M. (2013), “The Economic Impacts of Reducing Food Waste and Losses: A Graphical Exposition”, Wageningen School of Social Sciences Working Paper No. 7, February 26 2013. http://www.wageningenur.nl/upload_mm/4/f/8/9b609991-d2cd-45f7-ae8d-a2ea3803288d_WWP07.pdf

Waarts, Y.R., Eppink, M., Oosterkamp, E.B., Hiller, S.R.C.H., Sluis, A.A. van der & Timmermans, T. (2011), “Reducing food waste; Obstacles experienced in legislation and regulations”, LEI Report 2011-059. http://www.lei.dlo.nl/publicaties/PDF/2011/2011-059.pdf

Westhoek, H., Rood, T., van den Berg, M., Janse, J., Nijdam, D., Reudink, M., Stehfest, E. (2011). The Protein Puzzle: The consumption and production of meat, dairy and fish in the European Union. The Hague: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Friends,

It is extraordinary how long it has taken for institutions concerned with food policies and food management to wake up to the scale of the food loss/food waste problem. At last we have some apparently quite reliable figures on food waste, and these are startling. The idea that food waste in developed countries is more or less at the same level as the total net food production in all of Africa can only shock. Hopefully it will spur efforts to tackle the problem.

This same blindness to reality is also behind the widespread popular perception that almost 1 billion people face chronic hunger because there is not enough food available for everyone to eat well. The big stress on food supplies, however, comes from the increasing per caput consumption of food, at levels beyond what is required for a healthy life, by a rising proportion of the world’s population as their incomes rise. The tip of the iceberg is represented by the 1.5 billion people who are overweight or obese, but I suspect that a careful analysis would show that a large proportion of the 60% incremental food demand forecast by FAO for 2050 (when population may have grown by about 30%) will be the result of general over-eating by existing and ‘new’ middle income families whose members do not necessarily reach high BMI scores.  When I looked at how much extra food would be required to raise 1 billion hungry people above the hunger threshold (in energy terms) it would amount to less than 2% of current global food production!

So the problem of food waste is not so much that it is robbing the hungry of extra food, except to the extent that it may raise food prices: most of them are hungry because they simply cannot afford to buy the food their families need. The long term solution is for governments to adopt economic and fiscal policies that share the benefits of growth much more equitably especially through stimulating productive employment. But, until they do this, the best investment that they can make is in targeted social protection programmes that enable all their citizens to eat adequately. Not only will this respect their right to access to adequate food but it will generate a huge economic dividend, resulting from greater individual productivity, better health and greater longevity.

The background note correctly reflects on the efficiency gains that would accrue to the food system from cutting food and food-related waste. I hope when the full study gets under way, however, that it will give particular attention to identifying/quantifying the environmental as well as health implications of food waste and overconsumption because these probably provide the strongest justification for public expenditure and actions to reduce waste. The extra food that is produced simply to be discarded is probably – but this needs to be carefully checked – putting more pressure on forests, soils and water supplies than the current production of biofuels which has captured so much public attention. Equally seriously, when food is produced, transported, processed, packaged, distributed, cooked and then thrown away it has a double impact on the processes of climate change – first through the fossil fuels used in the production to table process, and then through its decomposition, resulting in incremental methane production in landfills.

One of the major constraints to changing policies with the aim of reducing waste, especially waste occurring at the later stage of the food chain, is that very large numbers of people earn their living – or part of it – from creating the surpluses that end up being discarded at various points in the system. Beyond that, in many developed countries, a burgeoning fitness industry is developing to burn off the fat resulting from a combination of increasingly sedentary life styles and over-consumption of food!

The background note briefly touches on the issue of food pricing policies, and this seems to be crucial. Intuitively, it would seem that a substantial rise in retail food prices would have the effect of moving consumer behaviour away from wastage and over-consumption.  This could be induced by punitive taxation on high footprint foods, but would have to be linked to simultaneous measures that would compensate for any incomes lost in the food chain, especially by small-scale farmers. This could take the form of subsidies designed to hasten the processes of transition to more sustainable food production systems. It would also be vital to match any measures that increase food prices with compensatory growth in social protection to safeguard adequate food consumption by low-income families.

Elsewhere (see How to End Hunger in Times of Crises (2nd edition), just published by FastPrint Publishing), Ignacio Trueba and I have put forward the idea of creating a voluntary Global Mechanism to Cut Food Waste and Over-Consumption. This would require the governments of countries in which food waste is a problem to set self-imposed goals for reduction in average per caput food consumption/waste and, to the extent that they fail to meet them, to buy entitlements to over-consume from countries with a high incidence of hunger. It would be based on similar principles to those on which the Clean Development Mechanism is founded, which allows for the purchase of entitlements to exceed emissions targets. When we first proposed this in 2011, we suggested that the CFS examine this idea: it now seems appropriate to reiterate this proposal!

Andrew MacMillan

Here's my contribution to the debate scheduled for next year; and currently due for completion by 30 April 2013.

Contribution - Taking account of information already available - Prevention of Food Losses (PFL) Programme

It's always difficult keeping track of work undertaken earlier, and particularly when the people involved have moved on and the work undertaken may have been originally designed to explore parallel avenues of development. There is also this thing about materials filed and largely forgotten; it is sometimes easier to re-explore similar objectives with the funds and enthusiasm of those involved in the current day. Thus it is with the FAO PFL Programme. PFL? This is the 'Prevention of Food losses' Programme which, like other institutional action programmes of its kind, eventually staggered to a halt (in this case in the early 1990s) as a result of declining interest at the time. Yet the work undertaken included much that remains relevant to the current study.

There is this thing about corporate memory and too, the topicality of current R&D investigations. Your scoping paper to which you refer 'Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems' references six sources of information from the past two years. Included in this list is the key document 'Global food losses and food waste: extent, causes and prevention' that dates from 2011. It lists 10 reference sources and, again, draws upon information that is relatively new (<7 years dated, apart from a single fisheries source from 1994). What this Gustavsson/Cederberg/Sonneson document does do well, however, is to list an estimated 150 alternative sources of information.

For the keen of eye, this listing included the FAO INPHO network (shared with CIRAD & GTZ) - the Information Network on Post-Harvest Operations that was first established in the mid-1990s; as a means of handling the wealth of information originally derived from the PFL Programme. You can find out more about this resource at: www.fao.org/inpho, but you would need to dig deeper to explore the PFL Programme and it's heritage value. 

To assist - and assuming that this is of interest to the network of contributors - some additional information is attached.

Peter Steele

Rome

14 April 2013 

Madame, Monsieur, 

Afin de me joindre  à la consultation sur les pertes et gaspillages alimentaires, voici ma modeste contribution:

Il serait important de mettre en place des campagnes de sensibilisation sur le gaspillage alimentaire, en utilisant les medias populaires (TV, internet)  afin de toucher le plus de monde possible.

Cette sensibilisation devrait s'étendre aussi au niveau des chaines de distribution alimentaires et des restaurants. En effet, d'aprés le rapport final (nov, 2011) sur les pertes et gaspillages alimentaires du ministère français de l'Agriculture, de l'Alimentation, de la Pêche, de la Ruralité et e l'Aménagement du territoire, les pertes s'élèvent à plus de 350g par personne par repas dans la restauration et à environ 200t/ etablissement/an dans la grande distribution (http://alimentation.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Pertes-gaspillages_RAPPORT270112_cle02c35d.pdf).  Il est donc primordial de mettre en place un système de gestion efficace afin d'évaluer les besoins des consommateurs et de limiter les excés d'inventaires.

Aussi, l'uniformisation de nombreuses cultures et la recherche de l'esthétisme a conduit à un rejet automatique de produits alimentaires, nutritionellement satisfaisants, mais physiquement inattrayants pour le consommateur. Prenons l'exemple des tomates et des carottes qui sont automatiquement calibrées afin de répondre à des cahiers de charge spécifiques. Les produits "non conformes", bien que consommables, sont automatiquement rejetés, ce qui constitue un gaspillage évitable. Il serait donc intéressant de réapprendre à apprécier la qualité intrinsèque des produits alimentaires que nous consommons, tout en donnant une chance aux variétés abandonnées car non rentables économiquement. 

Enfin dans les pays pauvres ou en voie de développement, la mise en place d'unité de transformation et de stockage adéquats dont le fonctionnement ferait appel aux energies vertes (unités de refrigération alimentées par l'energie solaire par exemple) permettrait de limiter grandement les pertes de production.

Cordialement,

Maimouna Thiaw,

Professionnelle de l'Agroalimentaire,

Montréal, Canada