FAO and WUWM collaborate to combat food loss and waste

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM) have agreed to refocus, update and strengthen their existing partnership with a clearer focus on globally reducing food loss and waste, and assure supplies of healthy and fresh food.

The new three-year agreement establishes a framework for supporting FAO’s initiatives and programmes for food loss and waste reduction as well as improving food markets and distribution systems.

“We are both committed to working together to find innovative and efficient ways to overcome the enormous challenge that we will have to face in the agri-food sector if we want to be able to feed human populations in the forthcoming decades in a sustainable way,” said Stéphane Layan, Vice-Chairman of WUWM.

“Wholesale markets are critical for producers and consumers. They allow producers to aggregate what they produce and increase their access to markets and assure standards and food safety. For consumers, they provide access to diversified diets at affordable prices. Moreover, wholesale markets are the last phase in the chain of activities where food losses could occur, so they are central in reducing them” said Máximo Torero Cullen, FAO Assistant Director-General, Economic and Social Development Department. “So we need to find ways to work together.”

Planned areas of collaboration between FAO and WUWM include knowledge sharing, advocacy and capacity development to reduce food loss and waste.

The cooperation will contribute to FAO’s development of a Code of Conduct regarding food loss and waste – a subject central to this year’s State of Food and Agriculture report. Reducing food losses along production and supply chains – as called for by Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.1 – offers a critical opportunity to increase the efficiency and sustainability of food systems to better deliver on nutrition and food security.