First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste – September 29, 2020

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  First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste – September 29, 2020

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Highlights –

1. The UN General Assembly, on 19 December 2019, designated 29 September as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.
2. The UNGA recognized that the observance of the International Day would contribute significantly to raising awareness of the importance of the problem and its possible solutions at all levels, and to promote global efforts and collective action towards meeting SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).
3. According to the World Economic Forum, with the world’s population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, the challenge for governments around the world is, how do we produce enough food for everyone?
4. Economists and anthropologists say that in the run-up to 2050, most of this growth will be taking place in the developing world (more than half of it in Africa).
5. Reducing food losses and waste is essential in a world where the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise since 2014, and tons and tons of edible food are lost and/or wasted every day.
6. The dominant paradigm of global food security is that humanity “needs” to increase food production by 50 to 100% by 2050.
7. Theme – “Stop food loss and waste. For the people. For the planet”.

Why is it important to reduce food loss and waste – 

1. Globally, around 14 per cent of food produced is lost between harvest and retail.
2. Significant quantities are also wasted in retail and at the consumption level.
3. In addition, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills, leads to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. The carbon footprint of wasted food is estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes.
4. In fact, if food waste were a country, it would rank behind only the US and China for greenhouse gas emissions.
5. The production of wasted food also uses around 1.4 billion hectares of land – 28% of the world’s agricultural area. A huge amount of surface or groundwater – known as “blue water” – is also lost.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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