Food Waste
Ajith Saju; Daniela Barrera; Hui-Yueh Ho; Javier Jardeleza; Kristine Jucaban; and Noemi S. Diumano
Introduction
Food waste is a major global environmental and social challenge for people around the world. According to the United Nations (2022), food waste is a worldwide issue that accounts for one-third of greenhouse emissions per year and directly contributes to climate change. It significantly affects the environment, the economy, food security, and nutrition. One-third of all food we produce is wasted or lost annually, which is enough to feed 3 billion people all over the world (Robinson, 2022).
The United Nations highlights food waste solutions with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2,12 & 13 from among the 17 SDGs, which were established in 2015. The UNSDG 12—Responsible Consumption and Production—offers an avenue for food rescue, UNSDG 2—Zero Hunger—feeds people and creates change by building more equitable food systems, and UNSDG 13—Climate Action—gets surplus food to people, thus reducing greenhouse gases created when food waste goes to landfills. The United Nations also sets the goal as, “By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses” (United Nations, 2022). Although there may be unforeseen challenges in reaching the goal in the coming years, being global citizens, we would like to dig deeper into this issue and do our own part to help make it possible.
In this chapter, we will focus on exploring the severity of food waste from local and global perspectives, the root problems contributing to food waste at different levels, the policies of the government, and the solutions for addressing the issues.
Topic Overview
According to the United Nations (2022), over 800 million people are suffering from hunger, making mitigating food waste an urgent action that everyone should take immediately. It is a global and social challenge that is currently being addressed by many countries and organizations.
Food waste is considered a major global environmental challenge because it wastes the resources used to grow, produce, and distribute that food to consumers and produces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. An example of this is the study conducted by ReFED, a coalition of nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies that fight food waste; they estimate that 21% of water, 18% of cropland, and 19% of fertilizers in the US are dedicated to food that is never eaten (as cited in Wozniacka, 2019). Food waste is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions because produce that is harvested, packed, and sent to a warehouse but has no market is often heading to a landfill where it releases greenhouse gases. Moreover, even when the loss occurs at the field level, agricultural products still require plenty of water, land, fertilizer, and pesticides that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
Food waste is a social challenge for people around the world because the increased waste of food is associated with influencing demand, which leads to an increase in the price of food stocks. Because of this, people with minimum incomes who cannot afford to spend more money on food are most at risk.
In response to the existing problems of food waste, key actions and initiatives are being applied at local, national, and global levels. Countries have created policies and organizations have developed food waste reduction programs to tackle food insecurity and greenhouse gas emissions.
