According to the New York Times, 60 million metric tons of food is wasted every year in the United States alone. The global food producer Kellogg has partnered with the non-governmental humanitarian organization CARE to train women in sustainable farming practices and work to strengthen smallholder farmers’ links with market actors. When food goes uneaten, not only are these resources already wasted once, but the environmental impact of food continues. A prize for the western world, but more importantly a prize for the developing countries that of course, need it the most. To cope with the issues of transport and keeping food fresh to avoid food loss in countries with large fishing industries, a Norwiegian research institute Nofima designed a form of packaging called Superfresh that will not only keep fish fresh for longer, but also has benefits for transporting the fish. Globally, people waste about $1 trillion of food each year, with a total economic impact of about $3 trillion each year if you consider the environmental and social costs of things like … One of the main challenges we need to solve as soon as possible is food waste and loss. B. Morelli, S. Cashman, C. Ma, J. Turgeon, and J. Garland. Many are also affected by food waste and loss. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. With many families on tight budgets and … With millions of people all over the world struggling to find enough food to eat, the fact that millions of tons of food is tossed out every year can be surprising. Reduction of food loss and waste (FLW) ranks high on the agenda of many policy makers and academics. Fighting food waste: an issue larger than it seems. Part I. When food is tossed aside, so too are opportunities for improved food security, economic growth, and environmental prosperity. In developing countries, food loss happens at the beginning of the food chain with 40% of losses occurring post-harvest and during processing. The lost consumer surplus resulting from our food waste pushes up the price of food. With all of these negative impacts, reducing global food waste has been identified as … This in turn has accelerated public and private efforts to make better use of available food supplies by recovering safe and nutritious food that would otherwise be wasted. Using loss- United States adjusted national food availability data for 134 food commodities, it calculate s the greenhouse gasemissions due to wasted food using life cycle assessment and the economic cost of the waste using retail prices. It is worth focusing on every day. This is worth about $162 billion of food. Not only is that money wasted, but that food also could have gone to people in need. The sheer numbers should provide inspiration for everyone to play their part. It is important to cut down on food waste for both the economy and the environment. Clearly, the impact is enormous. Consumers are being targeted by ICT applications as well. Today is National Voter Registration Day! They are currently expanding their scope to develop applications tailored to hospitals, theme parks and company restaurants. When it ends up in a landfill to rot, food emits harmful gases Source:Harvard , including methane, which contributes to food waste’s total carbon footprint of 3.3 billion tonnes Source:FAO per year. This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Businesses and private – public partnerships are initiating projects and products to create these solutions. There are 17 SDGs and many of them can be related to the Food, Beverage and Agriculture sector. It is clear that if solutions are found to prevent food waste and loss, significant headway can be made towards eliminating hunger worldwide, preserving our resources and reducing pollution. Bearing in mind that food waste and loss also implies the waste of all the resources that went into producing it, this cannot continue. Your email address will not be published. COVID-19 has made us rethink all matters of hygiene. According to the New York Times, 60 million metric tons of food is wasted every year in the United States alone. In the UK alone, home food waste is said to be worth £800 per household per year. And what makes it most accessible to poor farmers is the sustainability of it, as it uses zero energy. According to a 2013 analysis by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the land devoted to producing wasted food would be the second-largest country in the world, and this wasted food accounts for 8% of all harmful emissions. It should be in the news every day, and should be on the minds of consumers and businesses every day. Start-up businesses like Copia collect leftover food from a meeting, for example, and deliver it to charities in their area, offering companies a business tax benefit for their charitable contribution and of course helping society by redirecting perfectly good food to those in need. However, this problem is not isolated in the United States. ©2021 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Right now, the resulting economic loss is somewhere between 780 billion and 1 trillion dollars a year, while with approximately the same amount of money, or less, all of the nearly eight million people who are going hungry every day, could … Food is typically wasted when we buy more than we need, store it incorrectly, throw away leftovers or cook too much. As an institutional provider of dining and food services, food waste is an issue for the University of Washington. building is frequented by many visitors, particularly around the elevators and By improving their access to information and education – especially for women – and providing innovative solutions to the issues of transportation and lack of access to energy, smallholder farmers can reduce their food loss. Such waste management costs include the maintenance of landfills (where food waste is most often disposed) as well as transport costs, operations costs in the treatment plants, and separation costs in some cases. 1 and by the FUSIONS (Food Use for Social Innovation by Optimising Waste Prevention Strategies) project, 2 in which a total of 221 publications are identified as relevant. UCSB reduced their food waste by 50 percent. International Non-Executive, thought leader sustainable business & capital, founder Business for Good, Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of … lunchrooms. We are a big family with 3 kids which means we produce a lot of food waste in a week. In the United States alone nearly half of all food is thrown away, with consumers accounting for 40% of that. Middlebury College used to haul the food scraps offsite, but now have a site on campus where they compost 90 percent of the food waste generated or 370 tons in 2011. Composting can be used to enhance the soil for your lawn and gardens, and it will reduce the amount of methane gas emitted from food waste. The collateral damage of food waste far exceeds a mere loss of potential caloric intake; like a broken motor hungrily guzzling resources, the waste of food is an exponential loss of resources. Higher prices and lower quantities of food invariably cause nutritional deficiencies for lower-income people. With the second wave of COVID-19 hitting nations hard, it's According to FAO estimates, one-third of the globally produced food, equal to 1.3 billion tonnes, gets lost or wasted every year. Also check food for bad smells or signs of mold before throwing it away instead of looking at the expiration date, which doesn't indicate food safety but just an estimate of when the food quality starts going down. The food wasted took resources to make. Required fields are marked *. Potential economic impacts of food loss and food waste reduction. Think of company cafeterias or business meetings with lunch provided. Bearing in mind that food waste and loss also implies the waste of all the resources that went into producing it, this cannot continue. main entrances. And all members of the UW community are affected by the environmental, social and economic consequences of food waste. At the beginning of the supply chain, we mostly see food loss caused by limitations and hindrances faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries. Globally, methane gas from food waste makes up seven percent of total greenhouse emissions. In the United States, over one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste.