Strategies to Reduce Food Loss in the Global South

Abstract

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.

Food loss and Waste Reduction as an Integral Part of a Circular Economy

“…However, other research suggests there is not currently enough information to understand in detail the socioeconomic impacts of FLW (Rutten, 2013;Bahadur et al, 2016;Chaboud and Benoit, 2017). Reliable and consistent data on food waste is difficult to find and comparison between regions and countries is a challenge.…”

“…FLW is also a significant economic loss when we account for the time invested in the production and supply chain, as well as in preparing the land, the use of fertilizers, and other costs caused by agricultural production (Bahadur et al, 2016;Kummu et al, 2016;Shafiee-Jood and Cai, 2016). For the United States, Buzby and Hyman (2012) estimated that in 2008, at the retail and consumer level, the total value of food loss at retail price was around USD165.5 billion.…”

“…Reliable and consistent data on food waste is difficult to find and comparison between regions and countries is a challenge. There is also debate as to the extent that investments to reduce FLW would outweigh the costs, which raises the question of how much "loss" could be accepted (Rutten, 2013;Bahadur et al, 2016;Chaboud and Benoit, 2017).…”

“…Intervention at upstream stages benefits end-users; food safety is the main reason that American consumers report for FLW (Neff et al, 2015). Technological solutions include temperature-controlled storage (such as evaporative coolers) and/or improved, energyefficient refrigeration (HLPE, 2014;Koester, 2014;Bahadur et al, 2016) coupled with adequate storage, including metal silos and hermetic polythene bags (Lipinski et al, 2013;HLPE, 2014;Shafiee-Jood and Cai, 2016), as well as improved storage during transport, such as using tarps during grain transport and vented trucks for livestock and fresh food transport (Foscaches et al, 2012), and finally smart packaging (Olsmats and Wallteg, 2009;Pradeep et al, 2012;Lipinski et al, 2013). Improved infrastructure, specifically roads, is another technological priority (Choudhury, 2006;Food and Agriculture Organization, 2011) as are market structures and functions.…”

“…Improved infrastructure, specifically roads, is another technological priority (Choudhury, 2006;Food and Agriculture Organization, 2011) as are market structures and functions. Wholesale markets and/or marketing cooperatives can establish quality control and logistics mechanism (Kader, 2005;Food and Agriculture Organization, 2011;Koester, 2014;Radzevičius et al, 2015) and communication (specifically, enhanced technology for communication) along the FSC can inform decision-making and planning (Stuart, 2009;Bahadur et al, 2016).…”