From Farm to Fork: Tackling the Global Challenge of Food Loss and Waste
The major challenge for our food systems is to revolutionize the way we produce, process, sell, consume, and ultimately dispose of food.
Global hunger is on the rise, yet the World Food Program reports that one-fifth of food produced worldwide is lost or wasted. This amounts to one billion meals a day.
Reducing food loss and waste is crucial, not only to preserve the food itself but also to conserve the vast resources required for its production. The major challenge for our food systems is to revolutionize the way we produce, process, sell, consume, and ultimately dispose of food.
Food loss and waste significantly threatens the sustainability of our agri-food systems. When food is wasted, so are the resources used in its production—such as water, land, energy, labor, and capital. Furthermore, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills generates greenhouse gases, exacerbating climate change. Food loss and waste generates up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Food loss and waste can negatively affect food security and availability, driving up food costs. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), reducing food loss and waste can enhance food availability and access, though the impact depends on how close these reductions are to where the food is consumed.
Food security is one of APEC’s top priorities. Members recognize the importance of agricultural productivity, international trade, and prevention and reduction of food loss and waste, in achieving food security. In fact, member economies have committed to fully implementing the Food Security Roadmap Towards 2030 and its implementation plan.
Ahead of the Food Security Ministerial Meeting in Trujillo, Peru—APEC 2024 host economy—hosted a workshop to discuss challenges and opportunities on reducing food loss and waste to ensure food security in the APEC region.
Policy formulation and implementation, stakeholder collaboration, technology and innovation were among the critical topics discussed by experts and policymakers.
“In APEC member economies, the context is diverse and complex. We are a region with a great variety of cultures, levels of development and agri-food production systems,” said Jorge Fidel Castro Trkovic, general director of Agrarian Policies under Peru’s Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation. “However, what we all share is the urgent need to address the problem in an effective and coordinated manner.”
Experts and policymakers highlighted the following key issues related to food loss and waste:
Public policies and regulatory frameworks
Effective policies can significantly influence loss and waste reduction throughout the entire supply chain, from production to retail and consumption.
“Policy goals for food loss and waste reduction must recognize the links among the social, environmental and economic aspects across the food system,” said Maximo Torero Cullen, chief economist at the FAO. “Policies must acknowledge trade-offs and take a holistic view of agri-food systems. Policy coherence must be ensured.”
According to the FAO, the percentage of food lost globally after harvest on farm, during transport, storage, wholesale, and processing in 2021 was estimated at 13.2 percent. Food loss and waste translate into a substantial economic loss. FAO’s estimates indicate that food losses alone are valued at an estimated USD 400 million every year.
“Policies that incentivize upgrades and good practice to prevent food loss and waste are key in upstream segments of the food value chain,” Torero added.
In Peru, for example, 12.8 million tons of food is lost or wasted. To address the issue, Peru has implemented domestic policies and laws that prevent food loss and waste as well as promoting food rescue that involved inter-sectoral and inter- governmental coordination.
“Peru was a real leader in developing an enabling environment,” said Sara Laughton, director of World Food Program in Peru.
The legal and normative framework for food waste deterrence through a food donation requirement that Peru set in 2016 was one of a very small number of economies that had a food donation requirement. When food has lost commercial value but is still edible, the law prohibits its destruction. It requires that supermarkets and food warehouses donate this food to a public or a private non-profit organization that will then distribute it for free to individuals facing food insecurity.
Enacting the law back in 2016 tripled the donations to Peru's major food bank, Banco de Alimentos Perú. The law also updates Peru's income tax law to provide for tax incentives for donations. Peru has also adopted implementing regulations, describing how all of these tax benefits for food donations will operate. In 2022, another law was passed that promotes food recovery, promoting food redistribution through educational campaigns, coordination of projects and markets and tracking information on food recovery and its impact.
“Overall, what these policies do is they are aimed at changing the balance of interest and create incentives to keep food out of landfills and also to encourage a cultural shift towards treating surplus food as a valuable resource,” Laughton added.
Role of technology and innovation
Technological innovation plays a crucial role in the fight against food loss and waste. Technology can play a transformative role in reducing losses, from improving efficiency in production and storage to using mobile apps that connect producers with consumers.
“Technology and innovation are important accelerators and must play a key role in future policy development and design to reduce food loss and waste,” said Torero.
“More investments and innovation should be involved in the reduction of food loss and waste to ensure food security in the APEC region,” said Dr Sun Hui from China’s Academy of National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. “For smallholder farmers, keep conducting training classes on new technologies together with providing socialized service. Research and develop smart and well-targeted measures to promote transformation of agri-food system from digital to smart, to minimize food loss and waste.”
“Sustainable practices can lead to cost saving, improve operational efficiency and enhance brand value. Enhancing waste management system is crucial,” said Dr Matthew Tan, associate professor at Singapore Institute of Technology. “Investing in advanced waste treatment technology, improving waste processing practice can help reduce maintain emission and lower overall waste management costs.”
Collaboration with stakeholders
Regional collaboration and international cooperation can be catalysts for change. The global nature of the problem requires a coordinated response. APEC, as an economic forum that promotes cooperation and development between its economies, is the ideal environment to strengthen links between key actors and develop joint initiatives that can have a significant impact on reducing food losses and waste in the region.
“Successful implementation of reducing food loss and waste especially through food rescue movement indeed require support and collaborative efforts across sectors,” said Nita Yulianis, director of Food and Nutrition Surveillance of National Food Agency in Indonesia. “Synergy and collaborations with all stakeholders from upstream to downstream are needed,” she added.
Collaboration and stakeholder engagement are particularly important in creating new policy instruments and its evaluation. Experts agree that peer-to-peer economy exchanges can add value and help in promoting better measurement and better policy evaluation practices.
“The approach we call forward is more for policymakers to evaluate and to assess the existing policy instruments and have that informed future developments,” said Juan David Saenz Henao of the OECD. “The progress we've made so far has been thanks to our engagement with stakeholders. The stakeholders have a lot of knowledge and access to data that can help us fill in the gaps we have in monitoring.”
"This is about bringing stakeholders together to define a common language. It's about co- designing what those solutions might be—looking globally at what's worked elsewhere, but also looking outside of food and drink to see how collaboration, how technology, is solving supply chain solutions, especially so that we can look to address this,” said Sam Oakden, industry action director of End Food Waste in Australia.
On 17-18 August, Peru will be hosting the APEC Food Security Ministerial Meeting in Trujillo, where minister-level government officials in the Asia-Pacific will tackle similar issues. In anticipation of this event, the Policy Partnership on Food Security has prepared week-long meetings and activities leading to the development of a 2024 Ministerial Declaration for the endorsement of the food security ministers.