Глобальный форум по продовольственной безопасности и питанию (Форум FSN)

The Europe 2020 Strategy - A resource-efficient Europe calls for an increase in resource efficiency, to: "…find new ways to reduce inputs, minimise waste, improve management of resource stocks, change consumption patterns, optimise production processes, management and business methods, and improve logistics."

The Roadmap to a Resource-Efficient Europe follows up on this, and stresses that our natural resource base is being eroded by growing global demand, highlighting the food sector as priority area for taking action - calling for: "…incentives for healthier and more sustainable production and consumption of food and to halve the disposal of edible food waste in the EU by 2020."

The European Parliament also took initiatives as regards food waste.

The Roadmap states that the Commission will assess how best to limit waste throughout the food supply chain, and consider ways to lower the environmental impact of food production and consumption patterns, via a Communication on Sustainable Food.

To prepare for this Communication, a public consultation was held in autumn 2013 based on several questions, including on food waste. More than 600 responses were received, from entities in EU Member States, but also third countries, NGOs…

As the European Commission is currently analysing the results of this public consultation on Sustainability of the Food System in view of preparation of a future Communication on this subject, it is perhaps premature for us to comment in detail, at this stage, on the document.  The questions raised in the public consultation – for instance how to define and measure food waste – will be further discussed in the forthcoming process relating to the Communication. 

Generally speaking, the draft is comprehensive and outlines the main issues to be considered.  The HLPE recommends that food waste prevention/reduction strategies require a holistic approach and integrated/co-ordinated action throughout the food supply chain.  They argue that cost/benefit and impact analyses should be carried out taking into account economic costs/benefits, food security and sanitary concerns (both food safety and nutrition/health aspects) as well as environmental impact.  Given the global nature of the food supply chain, sharing outcomes of such analyses as well as intervention strategies carried out in specific countries/markets would be beneficial to all.  

However, it is not easy to catch the messages among all the information presented. It could be useful to present "summarizing tables" comparing the differences.

Besides that, some points should be revised. In particular:

• The importance of the urbanization process in developing countries is crucial. How the big distribution is developing there and how it is possible to maintain an acceptable FLW.
• The section on "impacts on access" in chapter 1.3.3 (page 22) deserves more attention. The reference to a WTO study on the correlation between unemployment and trade barriers seems to be too remote from the issue of food waste. How the WTO rules influence the FWL is a complex topic. Either it should be deeply analysed or incomplete references should be specified (e.g. exact linkage to food waste) or removed.
• Some examples (as the one presenting the cow milk production at page 25) seem not too appropriate. If we compare two production systems we must do it considering all the inputs/outputs, not only one (such as milk): if we take into consideration all these aspects the final assessment could be completely different.
• It could be worth to analyse the implications of reducing food losses for the whole global economic system. Would it be possible to significantly decrease food waste without considering what changes would be needed in our economic system based on producing always more? Physics obliging, more food production (more transformation of natural matter and energy in edible matter) implies more waste. There's certainly room for more efficiency, but to what actual extent (based on which postulates)?
• The comparison between FLW in industrialized and developing countries seems to be "stretched of" with the result of not being always clear. It would be easier to consider the food consumption/distribution habits: big distribution (which is well established also in some developing countries) versus small markets…
• On Q1 of the consultation, the draft could explain early on the waste prevention hierarchy which  --whilst recognising the need to reduce food waste at each level of the pyramid -- does not consider the donation of food to people and the feeding of foods to animals as food waste per se. It seems that the document supports this view which could perhaps be stated more clearly.
• Section 3.8 of the document outlines food laws and policies put in place to prevent food losses and waste. With respect to the situation in the EU, this section can be further updated once the Communication on Sustainability of the Food System has been issued.  The authors already state that further developments are ongoing in OECD and with respect to the FP7 research project FUSIONS whose results and outcomes will help inform developments in the EU.
• With respect to Q3, should the HLPE not already be aware of the dedicated section on DG SANCO's website regarding food waste, they may wish to refer  to the "best practices" in food waste prevention/reduction, which can be found at the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/sustainability/good_practices_en.htm

General Remarks

Germany highly welcomes the opportunity to comment on the HLPE V0-Draft reviewing policies for reduction of food losses and waste and the challenges and opportunities that they may represent for food security worldwide. Coming from a human rights approach and taking into account obligations embedded within the human right to adequate food, Germany supports the development of joined strategies towards sustainable food systems.

The paper gives a rather good overview over the discussion on food loss and waste (FLW) reduction. It mentions and elaborates on several important problems like different definitions of FLW, data availability and the scope of the discussion.

The overall structure of the report is appropriate. In our opinion the combination of FLW definitions, causes and drivers of FLW as well as solutions to reduce FLW is reasonable, even though there is a quite significant overlapping of contents in several parts of the report. To quote only one example:

• Chapter 2, Page 29, line 11: “Most growers in developing countries lack on-farm cold storage facilities”;
• Chapter 2, Page 29, line 54: “Cold storage facilities are non-existent or inaccessible to the majority of small holder farmers”;
• Chapter 2, Page 30, line 9: “cold storage facilities are rare”;
• Chapter 3, Page 44, line 45: “The majority of the small holder farmers cannot afford on-farm cold storage facilities”;
• Chapter 3, Page 45, line 4: “For small holder farmers, lack of on-farm cold storage means…”

Besides these we found further repetitions throughout the chapters, which unnecessarily prolong the report reading. Above all it is essential to harmonize the three chapters of the document as constitutive elements by shortening related chapters and thus avoid replications.

Another positive aspect of the report is the well-founded literature base. Almost every section is confirmed by a large amount of up-to-date references and/or data records. Due to this the report delivers an authentic, evidence-based analysis of the topic. From our point of view several chapters provide potential to reduce excessive parts (e.g. 1.2.5 “What are the trends / evolutions of food systems, and related drivers?” or 2.4.1 “Losses in retail outlets”) which also includes the literature information (e.g. 3.5.2, line 24-32).

We found another need for enlargement in chapter 2.3.2 “Lack of credit market/institutions” which consists only of two sentences. There is much more potential for improving this section (e.g. influence of micro-credit in developing countries on the infrastructure and to reduce FLW).

Section 3.7 on “Socio-economic aspects of food losses and waste reduction” is based on too simplistic assumptions. It only considers that food loss reduction leads to higher food supply and to lower prices for consumers. It completely neglects (i) the reaction of producers facing lower prices which could lead to lower production and increasing prices and (ii) the reaction of actors along the food chain processing and trading lower quantities. The latter has to cover the same fixed cost with lower turnover, thus an increase in prices is very likely. Whether there will be a noticeable decrease in food prices or not is not easy to proof – at least it is more complex than section 3.7 suggests.

1. How to measure Food Losses and Waste (FLW)? FLW can be measured from different perspectives (weight, caloric and nutrition value, monetary value…) with different approaches presenting pros and cons, and methodological issues. Do you think that the V0 draft covers properly the aspects of FLW measurements, including nutrient losses? Is there additional evidence about estimates of past and current food losses and waste, which would deserve to be mentioned?

• FWL including the definitions of loss and waste is well described and illustrated in a holistic approach. The term “food wastage” as used by FAO covers food losses and food waste along the entire value chain. However, there is a need of clarification in the definition (page 9, line 21+): there is a difference whether a product loss occurs when a product is ready to be harvested or already harvested. Products which are not harvested because they do not meet certain product standards should be either included or not. The definition should be clear in this regard.

In fact, environmental effects and costs are a very crucial issue (which is already mentioned in 1.3.4) and should be extended and further elaborated. This is why in addition to measurement criteria for food losses such as weight, quality and economic value, we propose to also look at environmental effects of losses i.e. the ecological footprint summed up over the complete value chain. This valuable approach was applied by the recent study “(“Food Wastage Footprint, Impact on natural resources”” from the FAO in june 2013: the study illustrates the impact of food losses and waste on the climate (GHG-Emissions), water, land, biodiversity and economy chances.  Example: Post harvest cassava and maize losses in Nigeria correspond to 1.7 million ha of cultivated land i.e. losses ac-count for 21% of the area cultivated with cassava and maize. (See study and further documentation in the endnote “[i]” of the document).

The environmental impact of FLW is globally important and already covered in a large amount of literature (e.g. Hall KD, Guo J, Dore M, Chow CC (2009) The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact). In our opinion the report could give more attention especially to environmental considerations and references concerning the waste management of FLW and in this context questions related to the risks for human health.

We also recommend that a special focus on post-harvest management in changing climates should be addressed by the consultation paper.

• Suggestion to add GIZ as well to the list on page 8, line 46: This is why there is now a strong movement for a harmonization of definitions and measurement (FAO, OECD, EC, FUSIONS, 45 WRI, UNEP, GIZ).
• On page 27, line 26, a better way of expressing might be “Although the focus of the report is on the losses happening from harvesting to consumption…”. Indeed, postharvest scientists (at least those concerned with cereals) include the process of harvesting in their remit.  Basically, they lay claim to the crop as soon as it is physiologically mature.  So when estimating postharvest losses they included those losses incurred during the process of harvesting.

1. What are the key policy aspects to reduce food losses and waste in order to improve the sustainability of food systems, in different countries and contexts? Is there evidence about the potential of economic incentives, and which ones (taxes, etc.)? What margins for policies in the context of food safety laws and regulations, such as expiration dates?

• The German National Programme of 2013 (“Abfallvermeidungsprogramm des Bundes unter Beteiligung der Länder”) to reduce waste mentions 34 measures of which 32 are recommended. The measures are initiated by many stakeholders: local authorities, state governments, the federal government, public authorities and private firms. The catalogue of measures includes research in the field of loss reducing processes, development of benchmark indicators, awareness campaigns and dissemination of information, advisory services for enterprises, cooperation among enterprises to reduce loss and waste, voluntary agreements between stakeholders, concerted actions between food industry and retailers.

Measures which are listed but not recommended are (i) the taxation of waste intense products and (ii) the abolishment or reduction of subsidies. Besides the expected positive impacts on FLW reduction these measures have negative side-effects concerning economic and social issues.

• Alongside these 32 positive measures, it must be taken into consideration that there is a fundamental difference between developed and developing countries.

In developed countries awareness raising and regulations (e.g. on expiration dates) can help to reduce food waste (which is the main problem in developed countries).

In developing countries food losses are much more important than food waste. The main driver for the reduction of food losses in developing countries should therefore be the economic incentive. Reducing food losses in the food supply chain means more income for farmers, haulers, processors or retailers. Government authorities can help in improving infrastructure (e.g. roads), or they can provide information on best practices.

In transition countries necessary measures can cover aspects from both, developed and developing countries.

• There is an urgent need for case and/or experimental studies analyzing the waste reduction potential of certain measures, i.e. estimating food losses and waste before and after a measure has taken place. Ideally, the analysis includes the cost of the measure.

Therefore, we propose the following paragraph to be added to chapter 4 “Recommendations”:

“The studies on food losses and waste have already created a consistent perception concerning the magnitude of food losses and waste, even if the indicators may be biased because of different definitions and data problems. Thus, an effective strategy for the reduction of food losses and waste does not need further studies measuring food losses and waste at one point in time. There is an urgent need for case and/or experimental studies analyzing the waste reduction potential of certain measures, i.e. estimating food losses and waste before and after a measure has taken place. Ideally, the analysis includes the cost of the measure.”

• The EU has asked its Member States to prepare National Strategies to reduce FLW. It would be helpful to review and summarize the proposed measures concerning food. The National Strategies of all EU Member States should be available at the EU Commission since the deadline for submission was December 2013.

• The paragraph on page 30, lines 45 to 55, could define more specifically which damages (quantity losses, weight loss, or something else?) are concerned. Without those explanations is this paragraph unhelpful. From the late 1970s onwards there were several studies and these not only measured the losses but also corrected for farmer consumption patterns (examples De Lima 1979, Golob 1981).  Typically, farm storage weight losses were in the range of 2% to 5%.  As a result of the arrival of the larger grain borer in Sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1970s storage weight losses rose to an average of about 10% for those farmers who were affected (Hodges et al. 1983; Dick 1988).  However, this is just weight loss and quality losses are potentially important in preventing higher sales.  The effect of quality losses were studied by Adams and Harman (1977) in Zambia and later by Compton et al. (1998) in Ghana.  In general it could be concluded that quality losses can exceed the financial value of weight losses by a factor of two.  A consideration of quality losses is given on the APHLIS website. See documentation on the subject in the endnote “[ii]”.

1. Can respondents submit concrete initiatives or successful interventions having reduced food losses and waste, currently taking place, conducted by governments, stakeholders, private sector, and civil society?

• The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture has launched a national consumer awareness campaign named “Zu gut für die Tonne” (Too good for the bin). It comprises e.g. a website (http://www.bmelv.de/DE/Ernaehrung/Wert-Lebensmittel/ZuGutFuerDieTonne/no...), a recipe app, studies on food waste and losses in Germany, special information on the expiration date of food and hints for consumers to buy and to store food.
• It is unknown, though, to what extent the campaign reaches households or changes behaviour regarding food waste.

• The study by FAO from June 2013 (“Food Wastage Footprint, Impact on natural resources”) gave many concrete and successful initiatives to reduce food losses and waste all along the value chain. It would be useful and meaningful to take them into consideration.

Other examples of successful programs having been implemented in the past are:

Training was conducted on biological control of the Larger Grain Borer (Prostephanus truncatus). The multiplication and distribution of clean and healthy grain reduced the infestation of cassava chips with P. truncatus by 20%. This in turn limited the geographical dissemination of the pest (Malawi, 1992).

The release of the parasitoid Teretriosoma nigrescens seemed to be efficient for the biological control of Prostephanus truncatus population. A reduction of 80% was obtained eight months after the release (it is not clear whether this has been a long lasting effect over years). In addition, appropriate counseling packages were developed for storage and harvesting technology and introduced (early nineties of the past century in Togo).

Fresh cassava roots were left in the ground after harvest. In this way, the root stock was conserved for several months without major losses (Ghana, Knoth, 1993).

To overcome difficulties in storing fresh cassava roots with their high water content, dried chips were produced. The storage of the cassava chips was improved by reducing chip size and by using wind and solar energy for drying. The chips were then stored in baskets, wooden containers, sacks or bulk and in various traditional storage systems used for cereals (Ghana, Anamoh and Bacho, 1994; Henckes, 1994).

1. What is the cost-benefit potential (and barrier to adoption) of different options, including technologies, to reduce and prevent food losses and waste at different stage of the food chain?

• There is a lack of studies analyzing the cost-benefit potential of different options and measures. As already mentioned in our answer to the question 2, the support of case studies to close this gap should be of high priority on the international and national working agenda.

• Experience helps to identify more broadly that profitable solutions to reduce food losses in developing countries strongly depend on the local conditions i.e. access to technologies and energy, quality requirements of markets, quantity of produce to be treated, transport and market prices. In rural settings with unreliable energy-availability mainly simple, low-cost technologies are cost-efficient and accepted i.e. simple storage containers, local storage rooms, simple solar and airflow dryers.

In urban environments a range of different more sophisticated solutions may prove profitable again depending most strongly on the local conditions.

1. Cold chains and cold storage (including adaptable low-cost technologies for cold storage such as evaporative cooling, charcoal coolers, zeer pots, etc): what could be cost-effective and adapted solutions to reduce food losses and waste and to improve the sustainability of food systems, given the diversity of national contexts?

• The issue of cold chains and cold storage has been well elaborated throughout the document. Challenges remain at all levels of the cold chain and its interfaces with processing and transport.

• At industrial scale (at all levels) cooling technologies are well applied, but often counter environmental protection policies, above all ozone and climate protection. Approaches need to keep the overall concept of sustainable development, not e.g. trading improvements in food security with negative impacts on the climate. Excellent technology examples exist in fishery (for example vessels with efficient freezing aggregates based on ammonia).

The smaller the operation (small-holder farmers) the more challenging is the provision of suitable, affordable technologies. On page 44, the increases in cold chain infrastructure for India, Brazil and China are contrasted with the lacking development in Africa. The subsequent explanation focuses on the lack of on-farm cold stores in Africa and that this is a crucial health concern in the cold chain. While this may be true, Jemlic and Ilic (2012) do not mention whether the improved Indian, Brazilian and Chinese cold chain infrastructure was due to cooling devices for small-scale farmers. The Indian intervention presented in Box 4 clearly focused on large-scale and electric cooling devices. The significance of solutions for small-scale farmers is thus not underpinned by this example.

Given that most examples of small-scale cooling devices rely on water evaporation, they share common disadvantages, e.g. reduced cooling effects in humid areas and food safety concerns when not skilfully maintained. This limits their adaptability. Evaporative cooling has also its limitations in capacity (usually only applicable for relatively small volumes). Furthermore, when large pack sizes are mentioned (page 38), it could also be indicated that larger product sizes require more time to be cooled down, as the surface-area-to-volume ratio decreases. This could be important in keeping the product sufficiently cold along the value chain, and may therefore be another factor to cost-effectively reduce FLW. Use of renewable energies (mainly solar power) or waste heat seems promising for the future also for small scale applications.

In the domain of cooling storage, many options for a programs implementation are conceivable. Economies of scale still need to be achieved for reducing equipment prices. For rural retail activities (traditional markets) concepts for solar, centralized cooling systems seem suitable. Refrigerated trucks would mainly concentrate on energy losses due to bad insulation, secondly on energy-efficient cooling systems (on-board or pre-charged). Supermarkets would concentrate on climate-friendly, energy-efficient combined systems for refrigeration and air-conditioning. Apart from suitable (feasible, viable, affordable) technologies, main challenges persist on logistics, management practices, standards (e. g. HACCP), and behavioural aspects. In synergy with a focus on technical solutions at farm-level, a deeper discussion on logistic solutions on later stages of the value chains might be worthwhile. Farm cooperatives and/or private processing firms could provide the expertise and capital to build cost-effective cold storage facilities and implement high-quality food safety controls (e.g. milk collection centres of Nestlé in China and India).

• Technical solutions need to be economically viable, available, technically proven and safe, but should additionally not affect the ozone layer or the global climate. Therefore ozone- and climate-friendly technologies, mainly based on natural refrigerants (hydrocarbons, ammonia, carbon dioxide, water, air) should be promoted.

1. Systemic approaches and solutions to reduce food losses and waste: Reducing food losses and waste is a matter which concerns the coordinated joint action (and change) by many actors, producers, retailers, consumers, private sector, governments. Which systemic solutions/approaches would be the most effective to reduce FLW, towards more sustainable food systems? At that systemic level, which drivers would create leverage for radical change? 

• We recommend 3 guiding principles for situation analysis and improvements:

1) value chain approach (regarding inputs, production, post-harvest, processing, marketing);

Among other stakeholders, enterprises are called upon to take food waste into account in their environmental management systems and to identify it in their environmental statements. It should be examined whether food waste ought to be considered, in future, as a sub-criterion in various environmental certification schemes or when awarding environmental standards.

2) Multi-stakeholder dialogue, participatory approach and empowerment, and consideration of the specific role of men and women in post-harvest systems;

Stakeholders could engage in intensive networking throughout the food chain and transcend the limits of individual stages of the value-added chain. It is strongly recommended that round table talks will be held involving all relevant stakeholders in the value-added chain, e.g. farmers, producers, distributors, large-scale consumers (mass and institutional caterers, catering firms, hotel and restaurant industry), final customers, churches and environmental, educational and social welfare organizations.

The farming sector, food industry, retail trade, hotel and restaurant industry, scientific community, and policy-makers can be brought together by initiating an Internet-based network for reducing food waste. A database of best practice measures from the food chain, in the form of an open source, will enable the stakeholders to benefit from the experience gained from successfully implemented measures. The SAFA initiative from the FAO (“Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems guidelines”) is an example of a concrete tool to engage small-farmers as well as biggest firms to a self-assessment, attempt of finding his own problems and solutions or simple monitoring of initiative. The SAFA Guideline “has been prepared so that enterprises, whether companies or small-scale producers, involved with the production, processing, distribution and marketing of goods have a clear understanding of the constituent components of sustainability and how strength, weakness and progress could be tackled.” Platforms on more sustainability in the food chain are the key to coping with future challenges arising in the provision of food supplies. In addition, such a portal can be used as an advertising tool for the enterprises’ own projects and thus boost the image of the enterprise itself, keeping in mind that it is also possible to promote voluntary improvement or to initiate the need for enterprises to upgrade their processes to a more climate-friendly production.

3) Integrated post-harvest management.

In former projects of development assistance, improvements in storage and post-harvest protection were not only achieved by introducing technical infrastructure or innovative storage protection measures but also by awareness creation for problems and training in post-harvest management combined with solutions/options in specific situations. Example of Ivory Coast: When warehouses were constructed, this was taken an opportunity to discuss all the details in managing and marketing of food, and to en-courage the associations to look themselves for creative and suitable solutions. The subject matter should be integrated in training schemes in the fields of production, processing, trade, and catering trade. Incentives should be provided for holding of and staff participation in training schemes, advanced vocational trainin

Please find enclosed Slow Food's contribution to the consultation "Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems".

The contribution includes 4 documents:

- Slow Food's contribution to the consultation through replying to questions 3 and 6.

- annex 1_Slow Food on food sustainability

- annex 2_SFYN_Draft guidelines_Disco soup

- annex 3_SF verso una definizione qualitativa dello spreco (in Italian)

With best regards,

Cristina Agrillo

Slow Food

International relations and fundraising

Piazza XX settembre 5

12042 Bra (CN)

Food loss and waste -ACF-FR comments on HLPE report

First of all, we would like to thanks the HLPE for this Draft zero on such a complex subject which is also a central topic for food security and nutrition. Linking Food Loss and Waste  to the diversity of food systems is important to us and we are welcoming the work done by the HPLE team.  

We were glad to notice that the report a underlines that:

• Losses and waste are not evenly distributed around the world. Producer countries and net food  exporters have a proportionately higher losses volume and high-income countries, which consume  more food, have a high proportion of food wasted.
• “food wasted while people go hungry is first of all sign of a global food system which does not fulfil its function; whatever the reason. It is a sign and symbol of inefficiency and inequity”.
• “It would also allow to better understand who would gain or loose to reduce them, which is key to design appropriate policies and incentives. At global level some analysis have highlighted the fact that losses and waste contribute to higher demand and thus to higher prices.”
• Changes in legislation and business behavior towards more sustainable food production and consumption will be necessary to reduce waste
• Reducing food losses and waste would also reduce the pressure on natural resources
• Women’s role to reduce FLW is of the utmost importance
• The proposition to better integrate food chains and food systems perspectives in any food security and nutrition and agricultural strategy or action.

Nevertheless, we would like to bring up some comments and make propositions

• In all the document; we propose to replace food security by “food and nutrition security” to enlight the fact that nutrition and the fight against malnutrition is a key objective of the international bodies and policies.

• To insist in the introduction that losses and waste are not evenly distributed around the world, (inequity)

• food loss is a key problem for the developing countries (and investments should focus on reduction of food loos in the developing countries through better production, storage and processing , whereas food waste is mainly due to the northern countries (net food exporters)
• recall that the food loss and waste is also an urgent matter because we will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050.

• p14) the distinction between local system and industrialized system is questionable in the given context: we recommend to insist more on the fact that family farming and small holders farmers are not massively contributing to food waste. The question is not only related to carbon print but to the efficiency of the food system to make food available and accessible for consumers. Local food systems have a role to play and local markets for the family farmers should be supported. The nutritional impact will depend on the availability of nutritious foods on the market, the relative prices of nutritious foods and the preferences of the family members who purchase the food. When you quote: “Advocates of local systems also pretend that they generate less FLW. There again it very much depends, on products and contexts.” If you keep this sentence, Please elaborate and mention in which context local food systems generate less FLW.

• P15 could you mention the number of food insecure people in the world and the number of those suffering from malnutrition.

• Figure 2 p 15 regarding the list of the countries in the graph, do you have any figures for sahelian countries, we could guess that the figures would be different and that per capita consumption would no progress according to the same patterns;

• Food safety issues should be reinforced since they are very connected to food storage. Storage is a crucial phase of the food supply chain and could lead to health problems. ACF and CIRAD are currently implementing a study on the potential negative impacts of agricultural project on nutrition. Among the negative impacts of food systems on nutrition, the contamination of Aflatoxins during grain storage pose one of the world’s most significant food safety risks. Aflatoxins is a fungal toxin that contaminates grains and other crops (maize and groundnuts in particular), mainly in developing countries. Aflatoxins is recognized to be highly toxic, even at very low levels. Alfatoxin has proved to favor cancer, illness, malnutrition and death. ACF recommend that the HLPE insist on the potential negative impacts of food processing and storage practices on nutrition (aflatoxin being only an example among others). ACF propose that the report support the design of strategies that control aflatoxin-related risks in the field, post-harvest conditions, and the diet or at least mention the propositions done on this subject (Cf SUN Movement). More generally, the design of food storage policy should be done taking in mind the possible negative impacts on health and nutrition.

FOOD WASTE

Submission from Susan Atkinson, Woodside Farm, Thorpe In the Glebe, Wysall, Nottingham, NG12 5QX, U.K.

My husband and I have an 80 hectare farm that has been in my husband’s family since 1919.  It has seen many changes in that time and at present is mostly arable and it is also in the Higher Level (environmental) Scheme (HLS).

Systemic Causes

1.  How a society views food and how abundant food production is in a country will determine how food is valued and whether or not food waste and losses are regarded as important or not. The UK has a mostly urban population that generally has little or no knowledge of how food is produced.  It also means that the UK government wants food to be produced that is afforded by the poorest of the population as comparatively few have the means to grow or produce any of their own food in our society.  Unfortunately, this desire has been expressed as food needing to be “cheap” rather than “affordable”.  As our society values goods by their price tag, paying thousands of pounds for “designer” handbags etc, food has become devalued in our population’s eyes and so little regarded.
2. This has been matched by the UK’s retail food sector becoming concentrated In the hands of a few large supermarket chains, who have held great power over UK farmers and have driven down farm gate prices to below the costs of production in their race to gain a larger share of the food market by offering customers ever lower prices, at least until the economic downturn of recent years.  Their pushing of ever cheaper food has seen our population turn to more and more convenience food in the belief that cheap food equated to good food.
3. At the same time the supermarkets demanded uniform standards for the products they bought from farmers.   This was to ensure that the produce could be transported over large distances as their operation became more and more centralised – standardised produce being easier to pack in a mass produced container for transport.  The standards were often set in a way that helped the supermarkets make maximum profit from the customer in spite of their claims for being value for money retailers.  Apples had to be a size that meant a pound of apples only contained three apples, so a family had to buy more for everyone to have one and cauliflowers were a size that was too large for one person and too small for a family.  These practises meant that thousands of tonnes of produce are wasted every year as the supermarkets do not want them.  Lately there has been some movement to supermarkets taking produce that does not fit the contract standard simply because supplies were short.
4. Also the supermarkets promoted “choice” for the consumers so that the customers were faced with products from other part of the world at all times and often could not find the British equivalent even if they wanted it.  Strawberries are flown In at the height of the British strawberry season and recently a supermarket claimed that it had to stock New Zealand lamb as no British lamb was available though it was the height of season for British lamb.
5. At the same time it has become the norm for people to eat snacks at their desks through the day rather than take proper meal breaks.  Food is regarded more as an inconvenience rather than a necessity.  It is known that our workers work the longest hours and yet are the least productive in Europe.  When people get home they all too often are too tired to cook a proper meal and so rely on instant meals.  The supermarkets have encouraged this by stocking frozen mashed potato, bags of prepared salad (apparently this item is the most likely to be thrown out as no longer fresh), containers containing portions of chopped up fruit and so on.  The supermarkets even sell bags of ice cubes!
6. All of these practises and others have led to food being wasted in phenomenally large amounts, all of it representing a great waste of time, non-renewable resources and money.  In turn this has led to the UK farming industry becoming highly indebted and under-resourced, both in equipment and farmers, while the country imports almost 40% of its food, much of it from countries where many people are unable to afford sufficient food for themselves and their families.

Food Production

1. Agribusinesses in the UK are forever at the forefront of those predicting vast increases in the world’s population and how farmers will have to produce far more food to feed everyone.  This is in spite of aid agencies telling how there is enough food in the world to more than feed everybody but that people go hungry due to the lack of land to grow it and/or the means to buy food.  I understand that if food losses were cut to zero there is enough food being produced now to feed several billion more people.  These announcements about the need to increase food production are always almost suggestive of the idea that the rest of the world cannot produce any large amounts of food itself.  The result is that farmers in the UK set out to produce as much of a crop as possible and are then surprised to find the market is over supplied and they are selling at prices below the cost of production
2. It is desirable that food is produced to a certain standard of nutrition if to be pronounced fit for human consumption and yet criteria setting the desired standard can be counterproductive, especially to the income of farmers.  One example of this is wheat.  The standards for wheat required to produce the type of bread eaten in the UK means that every year thousands of tonnes of bread-making wheat varieties grown for the UK market fail to make the grade, the amount failing varying according to each year’s weather patterns.  This failed wheat is then re-classified for animal feed and the farmer receives less for it, especially as the UK is an exporter of feed wheat. However, much of this “feed” wheat has high protein levels and as such is still suitable for human consumption elsewhere in the world and is exported abroad for this purpose.  Indeed, during the Ethiopian famine of 1984, the aid agencies exported high grade feed wheat to that country as it was both cheaper to buy and yet suitable for the way it would be cooked in  that country.  In ordinary circumstances, this sort of wheat can be dumped on markets in other countries, depressing prices for the farmers there.
3. Over-production is not just encouraged in crops but also in livestock.  The rising economies of India and China are always being promoted as emerging markets, particularly China.  The attitude taken is that the emerging economies will adopt a more western diet as the average income increases and no thought is taken of any potential problems to this theory.  A recent farming programme on television featured a Welsh dairy farmer who is planning to greatly increase his herd as he believes UK farmers have to get ever bigger to compete on world markets.  He saw China as a vast potential market for dairy products though the fact that Chinese people do not eat items such as yoghurt was mentioned.  He was talking about the UK needing to catch up with other countries that were already looking at this, blissfully unaware of the fact that most Chinese adults are lactose intolerant and therefore any market for dairy products is likely to be limited.  There is also the issue that even a large dairy farmer would not produce enough quantities of cheese or yoghurt to export directly themselves and just producing liquid milk would hardly be profitable in a country that has seen its own dairy industry decimated in recent years and imports over a million litres of milk every day as it is “cheaper”.  For decades the UK farming industry has been subjected to these “race to the bottom” tactics.
4. The drive for “efficiency” (which translates into farmers always reducing costs so the farm gate price can be even lower and big business makes even more profit) also means that the drive is for animals to be housed in ever larger numbers and intensively reared.  This is also being applied to the dairy sector, with herds being housed all year round and milked by robots.  There is little thought about what such practises are doing to the eco-system in spite of all the supposed concern about the environment.  This farm is in an area that once contained a great many small dairy herds, being part of the region that produces Stilton cheese.  The drive to larger herds and falling milk prices meant that farmers gave up their dairy herds (we were one) and now there is only one dairy herd ion this neighbourhood.  As the manure from a dairy cow can support up to 200 pounds weight of insects peer year, the numbers of birds also declined due to this loss of a major food source.  Also bio-diversity suffered as plant species found in pastures have spent thousands of years being eaten by grazing animals before their seeds have been deposited back on the pasture, with the result that once the animals were removed, the seeds had problems germinating.  We are using sheep on this farm at present to spread the rarer plants over greater areas of the pastures.  Upsetting the balance of any eco-system has unlooked for consequences, such as removing species that predate on insects that attack our crops and thus hampering food production unless ever more chemicals are used.
5. It is well known that an over-reliance on artificial fertilisers alone has led to soils being depleted of minerals and trace elements.  Now there is concern that the farm machinery is so large it is damaging soil structure, particularly in wet weather.  This was especially true in 2012 when the damage caused to many farms means that it would take several years to restore these soils, always assuming weather conditions allow this.  As once again the country is suffering from extremely wet weather, this is unlikely.  Having relatively small machinery on our farm meant that my husband was able to wait for conditions to be right before combining etc and our soil has not suffered.  Yet the land grabbing taking place around the world is for mega businesses to use very large machinery to grow monocultures, which could see soils ruined in a few years.  As the world’s climate changes, weather windows to get land work operations completed will be smaller.  Machinery size, labour numbers and farm size will have to adapt to this as the soils must be preserved otherwise average yields will decrease, in effect losing food pre-harvest.
6. Also there is a move to make more and more people dependent on commercially produced varieties of seed rather than continuing the practise of developing their own strains, swapping seeds and growing crops that effectively contain many strains per plot of ground.  This traditional way is the most efficient way to cope with climate change, but mega businesses have convinced many governments that their uniform mono-cultures are the most efficient.  As governments are mostly or all male while much of the smallholder farming is carried out by women, it is easy for the voice of business to win. 
7. Water management is also important, as has been demonstrated by the recent storms in the UK.  Rivers and other waterways have not been kept clear, so flooding is more and more frequent in some areas an d yet up to December, last year had been very dry and many farms need on farm reservoirs to cope with such conditions.  As the climate becomes more extreme, this swinging from wet to drought and back again could become the norm for many areas of the world and the consequences for food production would be enormous.
8. For all the talk about all the world’s population having the right to food and various targets and schemes supposedly aimed to achieve this, the world’s economic system treats food as commodities to be traded in order for a few to make vast profits.  Until this is altered so that food is treated as a basic human right, production systems will be manipulated in favour of business interests and the means to produce food, soils, water etc will also be wasted along with the waste and loss of food already experienced.

There is no “one-size-fit-all” recipe for building sustainable local food systems, but there are a certain number of key characteristics that are recurrent in sucessfully building sustainable local food systems, that include a mix of collective solidarity economy-based initiatives, such as CSAs, community gardens, allotments, grow-it-yourself and share, pro-collective local small-scale farmer public procurement policies, re-zoning  and protection of land to accommodate urban/peri-urban farming, new forms of collective short-chain distribution systems and small-scale community owned/driven processing units (co-oops and social enterprise are key to this) and many more.

Sustainable food systems need above all to be local and based on a territorial, multi-stakeholder logic. The more community-driven they are, the more sustainable they become, as there is genuine ownership involved. The form that this takes varies from country to country, but there are certainly some constants in terms of sustainable results and virtuous circles.  They involve fair prices being paid to local producers, as well as fair wages and social protection for the agricultural workforce (both on farms and in processing units).  They equally involve solidarity-based local food kitchens or shops that sell healthy local produce for the socially excluded, or as in the case of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), the possibility to include shares at significantly lower prices for those in need. The element of negotiation between consumers and producers and shared risk in CSAs is also a significant aspect that builds solidarity, a key ingredient in any kind of sustainable system. CSAs have developed globally and represent an increasinglyly significant number of consumers and producers.

The emergence of Local food Policy Councils is one of the keys to taking local diversity and voices into account, and ensuring that both producers and consumers voices are effectively heard.

I have included hereafter various links that I believe are indicate of emerging trends and solutions. They are based on many different regions and several different countries. Although I have not included any links to initiatives in Brazil, the public procurement and local Feria for small-scale organic farmers are important illustrations of sustainable systems.

There are also an increasing number of Local and Regional governments in France that are paying attention to public procurement that favours small-scale local farmers in sourcing food for school and public authority canteens (Nantes, Poitou-Charentes and others).

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Food Policy Council

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3foJblzhqI&feature=share

http://www.whyhunger.org/portfolio?topicId=37

Sustainable Food Hubs

Ontario (these and many more links available)

http://www.foodhubs.org.au/resource/models-and-best-practices-for-building-sustainable-food-systems-in-ontario-and-beyond/

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cloe20/18/5#.UtqAzvZKGu4

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2013.787975#.UtqAn_ZKGu4

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cloe20/18/5#.UtqAzvZKGu4

http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/?id=176

Mapping local food initiatives in Ontario: the interplay between sectors providing a joined-up picture:

http://nourishingontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Appendix_FINAL.pdf

Sustainable Public Procurement in the United Kingdom: Helen Woodcock

http://www.kindling.org.uk/sustainable-fayre-report

Manchester Veg People: growers and buyers coop:

http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/?id=214

A joined-up regional approach in Scotland:

http://www.nourishscotland.org/

Local Authorities and sustainable local food systems

http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu/publications/guide-to-developing-local-food-systems-in-nc.pdf

IUFN: http://fr.iufn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/IUFN-platform-ufg.pdf

Urban Food network

Eating City: http://www.eatingcity.org/

Local authorities in Japan: http://local-development.blogspot.fr/2010_04_01_archive.html

Making Local Food Work, Plunkett Foundation

http://www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk/

Food waste:

http://foodcloud.ie/

Sharing:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=541009725995154&set=a.362586437170818.59843342.357323844363744&type=1&theater

Co-gardening:

http://www.canadiangardening.com/how-to/gardening-resources/make-a-difference-in-your-community-through-co-gardening/a/29152

Sent as attachments:

CSM background paper for the FAO Regional Consultations with

CSOs and the FAO Regional Conference

Making Farmers’ Markets Work: Community

Making Local Food Work: Understanding your Customers

Introduction of Nourish

Congratulations for this already comprehensive draft document. We propose:

• to include yield gaps in the scope of the food waste definition in order to take into account improvement from better agricultural practices;
• to put more focus on the role of best-before-dates and sell-by-dates in food wastage at consumer level.

Please find the Spanish Strategy "More food, less waste" in English and in Spanish.

Contribution to the HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Report: Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems

By Switzerland

Congratulations to this quite comprehensive document. Nevertheless, we would like to bring up some issues that could be added or reflected more clearly:

• As mentioned there exists a high uncertainty about the dimension of losses both in physical and in economic terms. Our overall quest remains: we do not really understand the economics of small holder families (composed of many households) in order to understand the rather high losses and the (non-)investment priorities of these economic units.
• In chapter 2.1.3 (last paragraph) the fact that cost of improved storage options as an obstacles for their adoption is pointed out. There are, however, examples were such technologies have been widely adopted and have had huge beneficial impact in poverty reduction and food security (see Fischler et al., 2011 or http://www.sdc-foodsecurity.ch/en/Home/Focus_areas/Post_harvest/document.php?itemID=9562&langID=1)
• In chapter 2.3.2 it says only: “In rural areas of developing countries, credit constraint is one of the primary bottlenecks in investment and adoption of technology to reduce food loss in whole food chain (HLPE, 2013b).” This is not enough. No mention about SACCOS or other forms of traditional credit schemes and their (potential) role or: why do they not lead to higher investments.
• In the concluding chapter 4 is stated: “The role played by women in the prevention of food losses and waste need immediate attention. Women play a key role in reducing food losses in developing countries and the challenges faced by 44 poor women in food loss reduction should be analyzed and documented.” We agree that these challenges need analysis and further understanding, not just within a household but within larger economic systems (“families”).
• In Africa, countries have committed to increasing investment in agriculture through CAADP framework and this is mentioned in the document. However, as it appears now, the focus is on increasing productivity. These countries need to increase their policy focus on preventing post-harvest loss as well. This dimension has to be given some more attention.
• The FAO (AGS), together with the other Rome-based agencies (IFAD and WFP) with support from Switzerland is in the process of establishing a global Community of Practice (CoP) on reducing food losses in particular at the postharvest stage in smallholder production systems. The CoP will include actors from governments, private sector, research, civil society as well as intergovernmental organizations. It will provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on reducing food losses and facilitate concrete collaboration between different actors. We believe that this CoP will be an important complement to the in the report mentioned Centre of Excellence on postharvest food losses (Box 5). The CoP could also be instrumental in regard to several of the proposed recommendations, in particular recommendation 1.

15 Jan 2014

Congratulations on dealing with a very complex subject.  Trying to combine both losses and waste is a challenge but then to cover pretty well all agricultural commodities at the same time is a very tough job indeed. 

I have a couple of comments.

P. 27 ln 26 – postharvest scientists (at least those concerned with cereals) include the process of harvesting in their remit.  Basically, they lay claim to the crop as soon as it is physiologically mature.  So when estimating postharvest losses they included those losses incurred during the process of harvesting.  So a better may of expressing it might be ‘Although the focus of the report is on the losses happening from harvesting to consumption, …… .

P. 30 ln 45 – 55 This paragraph includes loss figures for grain storage that are unhelpful.  It is not stated whether they are % grain damage, weight loss or something else.  As they stand they look very much like the kind of figures used by FAO before the development of modern loss assessment methods in the late 1970s.  My old colleague Peter Tyler has written about the problem of excessive figures for cereal losses (Tyler 1982).  From the late 1970s onwards there were several studies and these not only measured the losses but also corrected for farmer consumption patterns (examples De Lima 1979, Golob 1981).  Typically, farm storage weight losses were in the range of 2% to 5%.  As a result of the arrival of the larger grain borer in Sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1970s storage weight losses rose to an average of about 10% for those farmers who were affected (Hodges et al. 1983; Dick 1988).  However, this is just weight loss and quality losses are potentially important in preventing higher sales.  The effect of quality losses were studied by Adams and Harman (1977) in Zambia and later by Compton et al. (1998) in Ghana.  In general it could be concluded that quality losses can exceed the financial value of weight losses by a factor of two.  A consideration of quality losses is given on the APHLIS website.

Adams J.M. and Harman G.W. (1977).  The evaluation of losses in maize stored on a selection of small farms in Zambia with particular reference to methodology. Report G109, Tropical Products Institute, London. UK. Pp. 150

Compton J.A.F, Floyd S., Magrath P.A., Addo S., Gbedevi S. R., Agbo B., Bokor G., Amekupe S., Motey Z. Penni H. and Kumi S. (1998).  Involving grain traders in determining the effect of post-harvest insect damage on the price of maize in African markerts. Crop Protection 17, (6) 483-489.

De Lima C.P.F. (1979). The assessment of losses due to insects and rodents in maize stored for subsistence in Kenya.  Tropical Stored Products Information 38, pp21-25.

Dick K. (1988). A review of insect infestation of maize in farm storage in Africa with special reference to the ecology and control of Prostephanus truncatus.  Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute, Chatham, UK: Bulletin 18. pp. 42.

Golob P. (1981a). A practical appraisal of on-farm storage losses and loss assessment methods in the Shire Valley of Malawi.  Tropical Stored Products Information 40, 5-13.

Hodges R.J., Dunstan W.R., Magazini I. and Golob P. (1983). An outbreak of Prostephanus truncatus (Horn) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae) in East Africa. Protection Ecology, 5, 1983-194

Tyler P.S. (1982). Misconception of food losses. United Nations University http://www.unu.edu/Unupress/food/8F042e/8F042E05.htm

Rick Hodges

Visiting Professor of Grain Postharvest Management

Food and Markets Department

Natural Resources Institute

University of Greenwich