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

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.

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:

• Addressing key gaps in data on FLW. Limited data availability is a known challenge when it comes to understanding the FLW problem. Participants across regions highlighted the need for consistent definitions and metrics to address limited data interoperability and improve evaluation of reduction strategies. Standardized metrics, measurement protocols, and data sharing are key to making the case in low-resourced environments for the value of prioritizing policies that reduce FLW.
  
  These data and metrics could also be leveraged in more sophisticated diagnostic tools to pinpoint loss and waste hot spots along local food supply chains, which can inform tailored interventions, behavior change campaigns, and financial investments.
  
  The participants recommended dedicated engagement of private, public, and NGO communities to coordinate and enhance existing national and international standards with clear definitions relevant to prevention practices, rescue, recovery, donation, redistribution, trade, and valorization.

• Scaling up promising innovations and technologies, throughout the value chain. There are myriad opportunities in low- and middle-income countries to scale up basic technologies and innovations to reduce post-harvest losses, including better handling and processing practices, improved preservation and storage, cold supply chains, and investment in infrastructure like reliable roadways, electricity, and communications.
  
  Innovations can be bundled for localized contexts based on local stakeholder collaborations and enacted through public-private partnerships where appropriate. In low-resourced environments, innovations should pass the tests of consumer desirability, technical feasibility, and financial viability. Trainings can ensure local work forces are able to build and maintain new equipment and infrastructure. In some countries, there are also opportunities for biotechnology innovations and novel foods to improve nutrition and resilience to climate impacts.

• Promoting behavior change to prevent FLW, tailored to different audiences, including smallholder farmers, processors, retailers, companies, and consumers. Trainings can help provide technical support for farmers, transporters, and especially processors to minimize handling and damage early in the supply chain. Wholesalers and retailers can be targeted with awareness campaigns about food redistribution opportunities.
  
  In countries with high food waste, educating consumers about the scale of food waste and how their approach to purchasing, cooking, and leftovers can make a difference has been shown to be effective, as has making the business case for FLW reduction , to incentivize implementation of needed innovations. Key stakeholders in high-food waste sectors like the hospitality industry can be engaged on strategies to reduce food waste while saving costs.

• Increasing financing and improving funding mechanisms to reduce FLW and associated methane emissions. Workshop participants highlighted opportunities to make the economic case for reducing FLW, incorporate FLW reduction into voluntary carbon credit markets, and provide tax incentives to reduce the barriers to known technologies in under-resourced environments. They noted that capital is ready to be mobilized, but often hard to connect with shovel-ready projects, and that multilateral funding partnerships that help de-risk investment are especially needed in areas that are most nutrition insecure.
  
  Participants recognized the importance of right-sizing investments and prioritizing more foundational infrastructure (such as power for cold storage facilities) before progressing to more advanced interventions. When strong partners are identified, investing over medium to longer timelines (7–10 years) can help to break the cycle of short-term investment in deployment without critical support for sustained maintenance and progress.

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.

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[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.