Food Losses and Waste in China and Their Implication for Water and Land

Liu, Junguo; Lundqvist, Johan; Weinberg, Josh; Gustafsson, Josephine

doi:10.1021/es401426b

Cited by 211 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…As Thi et al [16] and Liu et al [35] note, in developing countries, and especially in tropical regions, there is a need for more investment in improved storage, transportation, and cooling infrastructure. There is also critical need for increasing producers' access to food processing, packaging, and new markets beyond their local ones [35].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is also critical need for increasing producers' access to food processing, packaging, and new markets beyond their local ones [35]. A joint FAO and World Bank report suggests that technologies and practices, such as postharvest grain management, pest management, enhanced storage structures, as well as enabling policies and institutional arrangements for grain marketing, could significantly reduce food loss in Africa [33].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Haque

Legwegoh

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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Approximately one third of the world's food is lost, and reducing this represents an important strategy for promoting more sustainable food systems and addressing global food insecurity. This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the socio-economic factors that are significant in causing food loss in developing countries. These countries were chosen because the majority of food waste in poorer nations happens on or around the farm and is due to inefficient storage and processing facilities (by contrast, the majority of food waste in the global north is caused by consumers or retailers and, hence, is a very different problem). To explore this topic, we conducted a multivariate panel data analysis where the volume of food loss in 93 countries over 20 years was used as the dependent variable and a range of socio-economic factors were used as independent variables. Results show that, for the countries in the global south, variables related to wealth, agricultural machinery, transportation, and telecommunications were significant in explaining the amount of lost food. We used these results to model the effectiveness of different hypothetical policies designed to reduce food loss and estimate that up to 49% of food loss could be averted by improving each countries' performance on these variables. While these results seem to offer huge opportunities to improve the sustainability of global agricultural systems and address global food security, this paper concludes on a note of caution: as countries grow wealthy enough to address the food lost by challenges associated with on-farm issues, these same countries may start to experience more food waste at the consumer/retailer end of the food chain. Therefore, any attempt to reduce on-farm food loss in lower income countries must be met with policies to reduce the emerging problems of food waste amongst consumers and retailers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Haque

Legwegoh

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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“…Studies related to single countries show a large variation in food losses, but their sum supports the rule of thumb given by Gustavsson. The total food losses in the USA sum up to 40% [12]; losses of grain were estimated at 19% in China [13]. Parfitt et al [14] listed seven studies on the losses of FFVs indicating average losses between 14% and 70% per product.…”

Section: The Challenge To Avoid Losses In the Food Chainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing food losses by intelligent food logistics

Jedermann

Nicometo

Uysal

et al. 2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

210

129

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The need to feed an ever-increasing world population makes it obligatory to reduce the millions of tons of avoidable perishable waste along the food supply chain. A considerable share of these losses is caused by non-optimal cold chain processes and management. This Theme Issue focuses on technologies, models and applications to monitor changes in the product shelf life, defined as the time remaining until the quality of a food product drops below an acceptance limit, and to plan successive chain processes and logistics accordingly to uncover and prevent invisible or latent losses in product quality, especially following the first-expired-first-out strategy for optimized matching between the remaining shelf life and the expected transport duration. This introductory article summarizes the key findings of this Theme Issue, which brings together research study results from around the world to promote intelligent food logistics. The articles include three case studies on the cold chain for berries, bananas and meat and an overview of different post-harvest treatments. Further contributions focus on the required technical solutions, such as the wireless sensor and communication system for remote quality supervision, gas sensors to detect ethylene as an indicator of unwanted ripening and volatile components to indicate mould infections. The final section of this introduction discusses how improvements in food quality can be targeted by strategic changes in the food chain.

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“…Previous studies on consumer food waste mostly take consumption as an aggregated sector [1][2][3] and do not have a focus on different segments within consumption. In recent years in China, there has been increasing public awareness of food waste and campaigns against food waste (e.g., the "clean your plate" initiative); consequently, a few researchers have also made some rough estimation of the scale of food waste in China [7][8][9]. However, none of them have reported results for schools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plate Waste in School Lunch Programs in Beijing, China

et al. 2016

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School plate waste is of particular concern worldwide due to its adverse impacts not only on resource use and the environment, but also on students' health, physical maturation, and academic achievement in the long term. Previous studies on school plate waste have all been conducted in industrialized countries, and more studies are badly needed in developing countries. In this paper, we report a pilot study on the patterns and causes of plate waste in school lunch programs in Beijing, China, by a combination of physical weighing, questionnaire survey, and semi-structured interview approaches. Our results show that the average amount of food waste generated by school students in Beijing in 2014 was 130 g/cap/meal, accounting for 21% of total food served. Staple food (43%) and vegetables (42%) were the dominant proportions. Buffet meals resulted in less plate waste than packed meals and set meals. Food supply patterns, the quality of canteen service, and the dietary habit and students' knowledge of food production were the main influencing factors behind plate waste. To our best knowledge, our pilot study provides a first understanding of the overlooked plate waste in school lunch programs in China, and a good basis for further analysis in this field, and will be helpful in informing policy-making in relevant nutrition and education programs in schools in China.

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Food Losses and Waste in China and Their Implication for Water and Land

Cited by 211 publications

References 26 publications

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Reducing food losses by intelligent food logistics

Plate Waste in School Lunch Programs in Beijing, China

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