Reducing food wastage can help conserve resources and the environment.
Managing
Food
for Sustainability
By CANDICE YACONO
W
hat we don’t eat can sometimes be as detrimental as what we do eat, albeit in a different way. Food waste—food that is produced but is not consumed for various reasons—affects food security, the environment and, by extension, all of us. In March this year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published its Food Waste Index Report 2021, which found that up to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with wasted food. Greenhouse gas is a major contributor to global warming. In the foreword to the report, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen notes, “If
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food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.” The report estimates that about 931 million tons of food waste was generated in 2019, more than 60 percent of which came from individual households. Twenty-six percent came from food service, and another 13 percent came from retail sources. This means that an estimated 17 percent of the total food produced each year is wasted. “The findings are consistent with our study findings,” says Debasmita Patra, food waste researcher and assistant research professor at the University of Maryland’s
