#FLWDay interview with Member of the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition Isabel Carvalhais

Globally, around 14 percent of food production is lost between harvest and retail, while an estimated 17 percent of total global food production is wasted. Food loss and waste undermine the sustainability of our agri-food systems. When food is loss or wasted, all the resources that were used to produce this food go to waste. In addition, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills, leads to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. Food loss and waste can also negatively impact food security and food availability, and contribute to increasing the cost of food. Actions are required globally and locally to maximize the use of the food we produce.

What kind of action can policy-makers take to reduce food loss and waste from production to consumption?

Food loss and food waste is indeed one main inefficiency of our food system, adding pressure over natural resources and with no benefit whatsoever for society. The numbers in the EU are even more striking, with around 20% of the food produced lost or wasted. We are talking about 88 billion tons a year and 143 billion euros of associated costs, resulting in negative impacts on all dimensions, whether social, economic or environmental. If food waste was a country, it would be the third-biggest carbon emitter, right after the US and China! 

Policymakers at all levels of decision (world, European, national, regional and local levels), have an enormous responsibility to act towards the common objective of reducing food loss and food waste, not only by creating more public awareness but also by promoting the right policies and concrete measures. 

The EU has taken the international commitment of reducing food waste by signing up to the Sustainable Development Goals 12.3, to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses along the food chain by 2030. Some actions have been made in this direction, though perhaps not at the speed that we all would like to see.

For instance, the EU established in 2019 a common methodology to measure food waste levels in the EU, as well as a reporting format for the Member States to inform on progress made. 

Having common reporting and interpretation on food loss and food waste is a very important step in getting better identification of the problem’s real dimension, of the weak spots in the food chain, but also in getting national and local authorities and stakeholders closer to a strong engagement with this issue. 

As in all waste streams, the key base for food waste is prevention. As such, initiatives raising public awareness on the negative social, economic and environmental impacts of food waste are very important, as well as providing active guidance on how to avoid food waste on a daily basis. This I believe is essential to promote a long-term consumer behavioral change. We must keep in mind that more than half of the food waste is generated in our households.

You recently spearheaded the efforts to translate the Educational Package on Food Loss and Waste: “Do Good: Save Food!” into Portuguese. Can you tell us more about why this translation is especially valuable and what were your objectives when you decided to start the process? 

I have had the opportunity and the honor of collaborating with FAO on various initiatives within the framework of the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition, of which I am a member. It was in the context of this collaboration that I became aware of this very interesting pedagogical material that FAO has developed to help the fight against food waste, and I realized that no version in Portuguese existed yet. It did not take long for me to decide that it would make perfect sense to bring my collaboration in addressing this absence! As we were discussing before, it is the responsibility of policymakers to make the efforts to move forward, to try to provoke change, in every possible way we are capable of. 

Promoting these editions has also a personal meaning for me because in my academic career I have valued very much the power of educating for citizenship and here what we see is exactly education being used as a means to promote true structural changes in society starting at a micro level, the individual. This is basically the background of this initiative to promote the Portuguese edition of the FAO manuals with great teaching material on the reduction of food waste. This initiative was also enthusiastically welcomed by the Portuguese Minister for Agriculture, that quickly accepted to come on board. In fact, this project was only possible thanks to the excellent collaboration both with FAO and with the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture.

The educational package is designed to educate young people to value food and reduce its loss. The goal is to raise awareness among school children, teachers, staff and their related families and networks on food loss and waste issues and introduce good practices conducive to food waste reduction. The Portuguese version was launched just yesterday, a few weeks after children went back to school. How will the materials be used in Portugal, and perhaps even in other Portuguese-speaking countries? 

These documents were designed and studied to fit the developmental stage of four different groups of children and younger people. I believe that values such as solidarity, empathy with Humanity and with Nature, must all be worked since the early stages in childhood. If we ally evidence-based information about the prevention of food waste and losses, with the exercise of critical thinking in the educational context, we will be sure of helping our children grow up with a strong sense of citizenship and autonomous capacity to create their own innovative answers in the prevention against food waste. 

Besides, we cannot forget that children are great vehicles for transforming the behavior and attitudes of their own families. Part of the environmental awareness that we find today in the habits of families (think about recycling habits, for example) is often based on the persistence of children that take home their good ecological practices. 

So, now that this first step has been taken, I think we need to work on the main goal which is to make sure they reach our children and their teachers! This is what we will be working on, by establishing partnerships that will help trigger and spread the use of these manuals, including the possibility of their use in other Portuguese-speaking countries.

Food loss and waste is gaining attention and importance on the EU’s political agenda, notably with the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy. As a member of the European Parliament Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, How do you see the role of the Farm to Fork Strategy in raising awareness and contributing to reducing food loss and waste in the EU?  

In the EU we experience this sad paradox: on the one hand, we live with plenty and with immediate availability of food, which explains why more than 20% of food is lost or wasted; on the other hand, more than 70 million Europeans live in moderate or severe food insecurity. This means that we are challenged by the need to guarantee food for all,  while also by the need to guarantee fair income to farmers. This requires a holistic and coordinated approach in terms of policy design and policy strategy, that may help to identify and to combat the inefficiencies that exist in the food system, and food waste is precisely one of the greatest inefficiencies we must combat! 

We must also acknowledge that talking about the global sustainability of food systems, is inseparable from talking about the right to healthy and balanced food and the concretization of this human right is, in turn, inseparable from the fight against food waste.

The Farm to Fork Strategy is an important step in the direction to a more resilient, sustainable and fairer food system, as it brings the holistic vision we need. However, when it comes to food loss and food waste, I must say that strategy is rather shy and vague. I understand that we are now in the stage of methodological consolidation on what regards the assessment and the reporting, but I hope to see in the future very clear commitments at the EU level and the Member States level,  namely through binding targets for the reduction of food loss and food waste.