FAO makes suggestions to curb global food waste

cassavaOne major front for action in the effort to reduce food wastage is developing better food harvest, storage, processing, transport and retailing processes, according to Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) guide.

It said harvest losses have several causes including bad timing and poor conditions during the harvest as well as inadequate techniques and equipment.

The toolkit: “Reducing the Food Wastage Footprint,” was made available to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday.

It said lack of good infrastructure for transportation, storage, cooling and marketing caused food to spoil, especially in hot climates.

It said both the private and public sectors needed to increase investments to address such shortcomings; doing so would also have additional benefits for food security and mitigating climate change, land degradation and biodiversity erosion,” the report said.

It said joining farmers together in cooperatives or professional associations could help to reduce food losses by increasing their understanding of the market, enabling more efficient planning, enabling economies of scale and improving their ability to market what they produce.

The Toolkit stated that reduced, or better, food packaging had a role to play as well – excessive or unsustainably sourced packing forms part of the environmental cost of food.

According to the Toolkit rejection of food products on the basis of aesthetic or safety concerns was often a major cause of food losses and waste, declaring that in some cases, farmers discarded between 20-40 per cent of their fresh produce because it doesn’t meet retailer’s cosmetic specifications.

It said some supermarkets had already begun relaxing their standards on fruit appearance, selling “misshaped” items for a reduced price and helping raise consumers’ awareness that odd-shaped did not mean bad.

The Toolkit said better consumption habits are also badly needed; adding that in developed countries, a significant part of total food wastage occurred at the consumer level and in some places this is a trend that continues to rise.

“In addition to conducting household food waste audits, consumers can take many steps to reverse these trends such as making weekly menu plans, buying so-called “ugly fruits and vegetables,” ensuring that refrigerators are working properly, using wilting produce in soups, and making better use of leftovers.

The aim of the Toolkit is to showcase concrete examples of good practices for food loss and waste reduction, while pointing to information sources, guidelines and pledges favoring food wastage reduction.

Source: GNA

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