AGCI Insight

Food for thought: Cutting food loss and waste can generate big wins for nutrition, climate, and the bottom line

September 30, 2024
Vegetables thrown into a landfill, rotting outdoors.

Worldwide, over one-third of all food produced is either lost or wasted — with significant implications for human and ecosystem health as well as for the climate. The challenge varies enormously across different regions, down to a community level. In many lower-income countries, the primary issue is food loss, in which food never reaches retail markets due to issues with post-harvest storage, transport, and processing. In higher income countries, food is more frequently wasted in the final stages of the supply chain by retailers and consumers.

To better understand the drivers of food loss and waste (FLW) and identify opportunities for action across regions, AGCI hosted an interdisciplinary workshop in June 2024, “Reducing Food Loss and Waste: Dual Impact Actions to Address Climate Change and Improve Nutrition.” The gathering brought together 34 experts hailing from 14 countries and a diversity of sectors and disciplines to understand the potential of technological, behavioral, and financial innovations that can reduce food loss and waste across the food supply chain.

Organized by Ahmed Kablan and Nika Larian (USAID), Shibani Ghosh and Robin Shrestha (Feed the Future Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab, Tufts University), and Jean Buzby (USDA), the workshop aimed to develop versatile policy and program recommendations to reduce FLW across geographies, with a particular emphasis on expanding sustainable food systems transformation in low- and middle-income countries. Support for the gathering was provided by NASA’s Earth Science Division, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), USAID Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security (REFS), Feed the Future, Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab at Tufts University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Reducing Food Loss and Waste workshop co-organizers and participants

Food loss and waste, nutrition security, and climate: A vicious cycle

When food is lost before it reaches retail markets, it contributes to chronic nutrition security for the 733 million people in the world facing hunger[1]. It also comes at the cost of critical economic development in local and global markets for low-income countries, intensifying reliance on imports and external aid.

Food loss and waste also results in methane emissions as food breaks down, exacerbating climate change. The energy and resources used to plant, irrigate, grow, fertilize, harvest, transport, store, process, and package the food are also wasted. In aggregate, if global food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, behind only China and the United States.

In aggregate, if global food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, behind only China and the United States.

There has been increased recognition among international governments for the need to address this global challenge. Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 is expressly aimed at reducing food loss and waste throughout stages of food supply and consumption in order to combat both climate change and avoidable land use change. Local to national governments, private industries, and trade companies are now left with the task of meeting these commitments.

Critical pathways to reduce food loss and waste

The AGCI workshop on this topic opened with presentations outlining the current state of FLW reduction strategies in regions across the globe, with attention to “triple win” approaches that improve nutrition security, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and are affordable.

Globally, goal setting and policy development to reduce food loss and waste vary enormously. While some countries aggressively pursue such targets, others have set goals but lack the policies or plans to achieve them, and others still struggle to capture baseline data to understand the problem and set meaningful goals.

Over the course of the week, workshop presentations and panels explored four avenues critical to reducing FLW:

Pete Pearson delivers the Walter Orr Roberts public lecture, “Why Food Systems Hold the Key to Reversing Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss.”

Elaborating on workshop themes, Pete Pearson, Global Initiative Lead for the Food Circularity program at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), presented the Walter Orr Roberts public lecture, Why Food Systems Hold the Key to Reversing Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss. Pearson’s talk explored both global and local solutions for reducing food loss and waste, including zero conversion of forest and grassland habitat and the role of mindful consumption and diets.

Next Steps

Organizers and participants are preparing a variety of workshop outputs, including a synthesis of workshop findings and reports to government agencies, funders, and the private sector highlighting priority development strategies and research projects to reduce food loss and waste. Embedded in the synthesis report will be regional case studies and actionable policy and programmatic recommendations to support sustainable food system transformation.

Explore more videos, presentations, and participant profiles on the workshop website. And to be notified about products from this and future AGCI workshops, sign up for AGCI’s email newsletter.


[1] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2024. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms