Celebration of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste

During the second observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW) high-level speakers including FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides and Slovenian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Jože Podgoršek made a clear call to action for public and private authorities, as well as individuals, to prioritize actions and move ahead with innovation to reduce food loss and waste.

The FAO Director-General called attention to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the necessity to take action to urgently transform agri-food systems. He noted that the world cannot continue to lose 14% and waste 17% of its food. “Succesfully tackling food loss and waste means shifting towards more sustainable patterns of production and consumption,” he explained. “We must harvest more with less for the people, planet and prosperity,” he went on.

Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides called food waste a strain on the environment and climate which is unacceptable in a world where one in ten people go to sleep hungry every day. “The European Union has launched the EU Loss and Waste Prevention Hub to mark the IDAFLW. It is a one-stop shop for stakeholders in order to inspire and drive further action on the ground, across the EU and beyond,” she made clear.

“The European food system is large and complex. It has achieved a high-level of food security and food safety and is on a good path to produce far-reaching sustainable choices. But we need to change ourselves and our social norms to fight food waste,” said Slovenian Minister Jože Podgoršek.

In Brussels, the Director of the FAO Liaison Office Raschad Al-Khafaji spoke to Food Drink Europe on the ways to reduce food waste while feeding the people and protecting the planet. “We could feed about 1.2 billion people with the food that is currently lost or wasted,” he explained.

You can find the full interview here.

The International Day was also the perfect opportunity to launch the Portuguese translation of the educational package on food waste reduction. The package named “Do Good: Save Food!” consists of different modules that can be used by teachers in class to plan lessons and activities on the issue. The translation to Portuguese was strongly supported by Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition Isabel Carvalhais.

The FAO Brussels Office also spoke to MEP Carvalhais on the importance of reducing food loss and waste, the role policy-makers can play in facilitating its reduction and her support to the Educational Package on Food Loss and Waste in an interview.

You can read the interview here.

You can read more about FAO’s work on food loss and waste here.