FAO launches platform to accelerate global action on food loss and waste

Food waste is a massive contibutor to carbon emissions worldwide.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has unveiled a comprehensive platform which aims to help the global community move faster to reduce food loss and waste. The UN agency and partners have called for increased efforts and for the world to prepare for the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste – which is to take place for the first time on 29 September 2020.

The platform complies information on measurement, reduction, policies, alliances, actions and examples of successful models applied to reduce food loss and waste across the globe.  

“Wasting food means wasting scarce natural resources, increasing climate change impacts and missing the opportunity to feed a growing population in the future,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu at the launch of the platform.

The FAO chief urged the public and the private sectors and individuals to promote, harness and scale-up policies, innovation and technologies to reduce food loss and waste, and ensure that the first international day will be meaningful and influential.  

Dongyu and partners also called for the application of innovation – both technological and operational – to find solutions for challenges such as post-harvest management, new ways of working together, food packaging, regulations and standards on aesthetic requirements for fruit and vegetables, consumption habits, Government policies and building alliances, including outside of the food sector.

“Food loss and waste is a sign of food systems in distress,” said Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). “Nutritious foods are the most perishable, and hence, the most vulnerable to loss. Not only food is being lost but also food safety and nutrition are being lost as well.”

“Addressing food loss and waste with accurate information and evidence at the country level is an attempt to create a food system that delivers on planetary health and human health,” commented Geeta Sethi, Advisor and Global Lead for Food Systems at the World Bank,”but to know what is a policy priority for a country, and therefore investments and interventions that are needed, requires good data and evidence. This platform is very relevant.”