International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste: Call for action to Food insecurity

By Fatima Saka

International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste is a call to action across all the public and private sectors of food providers and consumers to work together to avoid food loss and wastage in enriching the effective use of natural resources, mitigation of climate change, and support food security and nutrition.

29th September is usually set aside annually in commemoration of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.

With the theme: “Don’t Waste Food”.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, this year is the third time on how important it is to reduce food loss and wastage.

Globally, around 14 percent of food produced is lost between harvest and retail.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the estimate is roughly 37%* or 120-170 kg/year per capita, around one-third of food produced globally is lost or wasted, amounting to economic losses of an estimated $1 trillion a year.

Each year, Nigeria loses and wastes 40% of its total food production, equal to 31% of its total land use and produces 5% of the country’s GHG emissions.

Food loss and waste account for 8 to 10 percent of the total global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), contributing to an unbalanced climate and extreme weather events in areas of drought and flooding.

Meanwhile, these changes have a negative impact on crop yields, reduce the nutritional quality of crops, cause supply chain disruptions and threaten food security, food safety and nutrition.

According to FAO in line with 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, most specifically SDG 12 targeted 12.3 calls for halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains.

Meanwhile, an estimate 3.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to a healthy diet and some 828 million people go hungry. All of this means there is an urgent need to accelerate action to reduce food loss and waste across the globe.

For a transformation to ensure better planetary and nutritional outcomes for current and future generations.

The Food Agriculture Organization call for the following:

1. As the world’s population continues to grow, our challenge should not be how to grow more food; but reducing food loss and waste in a sustainable manner, is an immediate need if we are to maximize the use of food produced to feed and nourish more people
2. Prioritizing the reduction of food loss and waste is critical for the transition to sustainable food systems that enhance efficient use of natural resources, lessen planetary impacts and ensure food security and nutrition.
3. Reducing Food Waste is one of the most impactful climate solutions
4. Climate smart innovation, technologies, and infrastructure to reduce food loss and waste are key to increasing efficiency and reducing food system emissions.
5. Food is never wasted! By applying circular practices, lost and wasted food can be converted to compost, or used to produce biogas, thereby avoiding harmful methane emissions.