First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste

Statement by Dr QU Dongyu

FAO Director-General

First International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste

Virtual Event, 29 September, 2020

As delivered

 

 

Ladies and Gentlemen!

1. I am pleased to be with you today on 29 September, 2020 at this historic first inaugural observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste by the Resolution of UN General Assembly.

2. Thank and commend to Argentina, Andorra and San Marino, along with FAO members, leaders and colleagues for their efforts and initiative in making this a reality.

3. The observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, provides an opportunity and highlight to reflect and to take stock of actions, urgently needed to reduce food loss and waste, toward enhancing the sustainability and efficiency of our agri-food systems and achieving SDGs as whole.

4. Foods represent a significant investment of our limited natural resources including air, water, soil and energy, as well as labor and time.

5. Food loss and waste impacts the current and future availability of these pressing resources and is a big challenge of our time. An estimated 690 million people on our planet today are hungry, and three billion cannot afford a healthy diet. The urgent situation has intensified with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to threaten the food and nutrition security of millions globally.

6. Let us be reminded of the wise words of Pope Francis, who said: "To throw food away means to throw people away" and considering food loss and waste as “social tragedy that can no longer be tolerated”.  Wasting food means wasting scarce natural resources, increasing climate change impacts and missing the opportunity to feed a growing population in the future.

7. To be cleared scientifically food loss concerns all stages of the food supply chain up to, but excluding, the point where there is interaction with the final consumer and thus excludes retail, food service providers and consumers.

8. Food waste is the result of purchasing decisions by consumers, or decisions by retailers and food service providers that affect consumer behavior.

9. To understand the magnitude of the food loss phenomenon, it is 14% of food produced which is edible but is not diverted to other uses (e.g. animal feed), the value of these losses is upwards of 400 billion USD.

10. In terms of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, the food that is lost and wasted is associated with around 1.5 giga-tons of CO2 equivalent.

11. From a crop nutritional point of view, this is equivalent to more than 1,000 trillion milligrams of phosphorus and more than 350 trillion milligrams of magnesium.

12. It is not easy to change the current food loss and waste practices. Therefore, The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste is so important for FAO, for key players and for all human beings.

13. A one-size-fits-all approach cannot be applied. We must get all players on board and working coherently. 

14. Farmers need to recognize that this comes with additional investment. Consumers and society should share the costs.

15. Successful approaches to the meaningful reduction of food loss and waste necessitate coordinated efforts among governments, businesses and individuals.

16. Government provides incentive policies for farmers, private sectors and academia and NGOs to take concrete actions on investments, education, technology development, innovative approaches and social movement in order to reduce food loss and waste.

17. We need to bring the public and private sectors together with academia, international organizations, our farmers and NGOs simply because our planet is a small boat in the universe. We are on the same boat.

18. We need to be open to new ideas and new ways of doing business. Innovative business models with the participation of the private sector are required to make rural infrastructure and technologies available for small holders.

19. Innovative postharvest treatment, digital agriculture and food systems and re-modelling market channels offer huge potential to tackle the challenges of food loss and waste. We have just built a partnership with IBM, Microsoft and the Vatican to empower AI in all these areas.

20. It is very important to share the experiences and best practices among members and regions through North-South, South-South and Triangular Cooperation by Hand in Hand Initiative.

21. In China, there is a proverb saying that “A single grain of rice comes with a thousand drops of sweat”.

22. Let’s use this opportunity to inform – consumers, producers and traders; individual and family; young and senior; men and women; decision makers and implementers; – Action now and not to be too late.

23. We need to start at the family-level: educating our children to respect and appreciate foods.

24. Better awareness from societies across the world will create new healthy and sustainable consumption patterns by reducing food loss and waste to protect the planet and efficiently deliver safe, nutritious and diverse foods.

25. Food loss and waste reduction must be a collective responsibility for all of us.

26. FAO is committed to work together with all of you to achieve better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better livelihood for a better world!

Thank you very much!