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Approximately 30% of food produced for human consumption around the world is either lost or wasted each year. This is equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes of food. Robert VanOtterdijk, Agro-Food Industries Officer and Camelia Bucatariu, Technical Officer of the FAO Nutrition and Food Systems Division explain the importance of actively preventing and reducing food loss and waste and its direct contribution to food and nutrition security for all. They describe the FAO policy work, including key policy messages. See all videos in the Policy and Governance series :  AR  CH  EN   FR  RU  SP

This paper uses scenario analyses to investigate how reductions in food loss and waste (FLW) in the European Union (EU) could influence prices in sub-Saharan Africa – as a source and destination of traded agricultural and food products. In addition to a baseline “business as usual” (BaU) scenario, four scenarios with 50-percent reductions are enacted using the Modular Applied GeNeral Equilibrium Tool (MAGNET). The analysis provides insights on 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. It also provides [...]

This publication “School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming in Latin American countries” contributes to the articulation of the sectors involved with school feeding, in the search for alternatives for the institutionalization and strengthening of school feeding policies in the countries; it is also hoped that in the medium and long term SFPs can contribute to the human right to food (HRF) and to sustainable human development.

The "International Symposium on Food and Nutrition Security: Food-based Approaches for Improving Diets and Raising Levels of Nutrition" was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to better document the contribution that food and agriculture can make to improving nutrition. These proceedings are a useful resource for decision and policy makers, programme planners and implementers, and health workers, all of which work to combat hunger and malnutrition. The proceedings of the Symposium aim at collecting and better documenting evidence that demonstrates the impact, effectiveness and sustainability of food-based approaches for improving diets and raising levels of nutrition. [...]

During the XXXII Regional FAO Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Buenos Aires in March 2012, one of the issues proposed for the agenda and agreed upon by the participants was that “FAO will organize a broad and dynamic debate with the participation of the civil society and academia to discuss the concept of food sovereignty, the meaning of which has been not been agreed upon by FAO Member States and the United Nations System.” (FAO, 2012, paragraph 25) To this end, this ad h oc document, prepared by the consultant Gustavo Gordillo, contains information and analysis [...]

The aim of the Toolkit is to showcase concrete examples of good practices for food loss and waste reduction, while pointing to information sources, guidelines and pledges favoring food wastage reduction.

This book is about Indigenous Peoples’ food systems and how important local knowledge about foods and the ecosystems that provide them can be used to improve health and well-being. The authors describe processes and activities in nine cultures of Indigenous Peoples, where interventions were developed and implemented with local knowledge, and explain how this information can benefit Indigenous Peoples everywhere, and all of humankind. Food and nutrition insecurity and the burden of high incidence of non-communicable diseases reach all corners of the globe. This “nutrition transition” is driven by changing lifestyles, loss of livelihoods for all those engaged in food production, increasing poverty and urbanization, and [...]

This paper reviews experiences on food export restrictions during 2007-10 and related studies and makes some proposals for disciplining export restrictions through the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. To start with, there is a strategic choice to be made. One option is to limit the disciplining to improving the requirements for notifications, information provision and consultations, along the line of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture Article 12. This is the choice that has been made by negotiators, as reflected in the draft Doha texts of December 2008. In the mean time, the 2007-10 food crisis and price spikes have prompted [...]

This paper reviews experiences on food export restrictions during 2007-10 and related studies and makes some proposals for disciplining export restrictions through the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. To start with, there is a strategic choice to be made. One option is to limit the disciplining to improving the requirements for notifications, information provision and consultations, along the line of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture Article 12. This is the choice that has been made by negotiators, as reflected in the draft Doha texts of December 2008. In the mean time, the 2007-10 food crisis and price spikes have prompted [...]

This paper reviews experiences on food export restrictions during 2007-10 and related studies and makes some proposals for disciplining export restrictions through the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. To start with, there is a strategic choice to be made. One option is to limit the disciplining to improving the requirements for notifications, information provision and consultations, along the line of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture Article 12. This is the choice that has been made by negotiators, as reflected in the draft Doha texts of December 2008. In the mean time, the 2007-10 food crisis and price spikes have prompted [...]