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Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetGlobal Initiative on Food Loss and Waste 2017
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No results found.Food losses and waste represent a serious depletion of technical, financial and natural resources invested in land preparation, production, harvesting, handling, processing and packaging of food. Measures for reducing food loss and waste must, therefore, be environmentally sustainable while contributing to the efficiency and sustainability of food supply chains and fostering food and nutrition security. Food loss takes place between production and distribution, while food waste takes place mainl y at the consumer level, in the retail and food service sectors. This flyer gives a brief overview of FAO initiative on food loss and waste. -
Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetGlobal Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction 2014Food loss is defined as “the decrease in quantity or quality of food” and are the agricultural or fisheries products intended for human consumption that are ultimately not eaten by people or that have incurred a reduction in quality reflected in their nutritional value, economic value or food safety. An important part of food loss is “food waste”, which refers to the discarding or alternative (nonfood) use of food that was fit for human consumption – by choice or after the food has been left to spoil or expire as a result of negligence.
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ArticleThe environmental impact of reducing food loss and waste: A critical assessment 2021
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No results found.This paper examines the rationale for pursuing environmental objectives by reducing food loss and waste (FLW). The main thrust of the literature on this issue is that FLW reduction can make a major contribution to making food systems more sustainable. Using a stylized analytical framework, we find that reducing FLW always improves resource use efficiency for land and water, and reduces the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted per unit of food consumed. However, whether the actual environmental outcome is improved will depend on where environmental damage and FLW reduction occur, and the way price transmission connects these along the food supply chain. We find that, while a food waste reduction at the consumer level always improves the environmental outcome, this is not guaranteed when reducing losses from farm to retail. We thus derive a condition linking the price transmission mechanism and the environmental impact of a loss reduction. Simulating environmental outcomes based on a range of parameter values found in the literature, we find that reducing losses at or close to the farm level can increase the aggregate amount of GHG emissions, and therefore focusing on reducing consumer waste is more effective in reducing emissions. As for reducing natural resource use, both loss and waste reductions reduce the amount of land and water use, but effectiveness is reduced by heterogeneity in environmental impact. Relative to loss reductions, effectiveness of a waste reduction is amplified if there are environmentally damaging losses upstream in the value chain, but also dampened by vertical heterogeneity of sourcing along a value chain. The paper makes the case that more targeted instruments may be better suited to address typically local water scarcity and land use and degradation issues.
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