The head of the Saskatchewan based Global Institute for Food Security says food wastage numbers contained in a United Nations report highlight the need for change.
The study, conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization, was intended to calculate food waste and its impact on the world’s non-renewable resources including land and water, as well as its contributions to global climate change.
It says resources used to produce, process, package, transport and market food that is eventually wasted emit the equivalent of 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases or GHGs each year.
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“It’s frankly not acceptable,” said Ernie Barber, chief operating officer at the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Food Security.
“We’ve got a challenge to feed the world, so we can’t afford to waste what we produce.”
The UN study estimated the wastage of food that is suitable for human consumption. It did not include crops deemed unsuitable for human consumption or crops that are intended for use as animal feed or by industrial users.
The report also examined losses and waste for different types of foods including meat, fruits, vegetables and cereal grains.
Measured in total tonnes, global wastage is highest in cereal grains with roughly 300 million tonnes of edible material, primarily rice, wasted each year in the world.
Total wastage in vegetables, starchy roots and fruits is also high, accounting for a combined 750 million tonnes of wastage per year.
Food wastage can occur at various stages in the supply chain, including harvest, storage, handling, processing, distribution and consumption.
According to the report, waste at the consumer level is highest in middle and high-income countries.
In Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, for example, about 40 percent of all wasted food is caused by poor consumer habits, inefficient retail strategies and failure to use perishable products before they deteriorate or expire.
According to Barber, upstream losses — those encountered during harvest and storage — are relatively low in Canada.
“In Canada … the biggest losses in the food system are actually at wholesale, retail and in the homes of consumers,” he said.
Barber pointed to grain industry innovation such as yield loss monitors, grain bin monitors and improved storage practices as examples of steps taken to reduce food losses in Canada.
Additional research would reduce losses even further, including the development of new crop varieties that are less prone to spoilage during transportation and the adoption of improved sorting systems that would ensure crops suitable for human consumption are fully used, he added.
The FAO also published these recommendations on how global food wastage can be reduced:
- Adopt improved post harvest and storage technologies.
- Institute awareness campaigns aimed at changing consumer behaviours related to food preparation and shopping practices.
- Change retail practices at supermarkets and restaurants, including reduced portion sizes and more effective pricing strategies on imperfect, perishable or expired food items.
- Donate more unused food or expired food products to charities or other user groups.
- Reduce dependence on expiry dates that can result in tonnes of edible foods being discarded annually.
- Use food no longer fit for humans to feed animals, including livestock.
