Mourning for dried-up orange: FAO “Not to Do” Recommendations

On 15 April 2021, XXII April Conference Associated Event entitled Food Loss and Waste: Global Trends and Russian Realities organized by the Institute for Agrarian Studies of HSE University and the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation. The event was held in the online format for the first time ever.

Within the framework of the event dedicated to issues connected with food loss and waste (FLW) evaluations in Russia and the world, experts discussed the world's best practices of FLW reduction and the possibility of their application to Russia.

Dr Eugenia Serova, Director for Agricultural Policy of the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), moderated the conference. She said that back in 2011, FAO conducted its first assessment of global food loss and waste which was estimated 1/3 of the total amount of food production. In Russia, it was the FAO Liaison Office in Moscow that first drew the attention to the FLW issue.

Ms Oksana Lut, Deputy Minister for Agriculture of the Russian Federation, made her introductory statement before the participants of the forum. She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic made the international community “consider the problem of food loss more seriously” in light of the “supply disruptions of both food and food components – seeds, fertilizers, medicines” related to the disruptions of production processes globally. Secondly, food stores that were closed, and “a part of food remained in the hands of the producer and never reached the final consumer” as a result.

Ms Oksana Lut underscored, Russia has started to pay increasingly more attention to this issue: “We consider food loss reduction one of the food security criteria in Russia.”

In his turn, Mr Oleg Kobiakov, Director, FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, noted that no single dimension of our life is spared from the food loss issue. Unfortunately, there are no “simple linear solutions” for this problem. “The problem affects all countries – both developing, where primitive methods of food harvesting and production, processing and storage are still commonly applied, and the most developed ones. Ironically, the most developed countries are still facing an increase in losses at the final stage, as food abundance and high incomes of the population generate demand for high quality fresh food products with a short term of storage.”

In his presentation, Mr Robert van Otterdijk, FAO leading expert and Team leader specializing in food loss and waste reduction, described how FAO designed the Food Loss Index (FLI).

“FLI focuses on food losses that occur from production up to (and not including) the retail level. It measures the changes in percentage losses for a basket of 10 main commodities by country in comparison with a base period,” detailed Mr Otterdijk.

Originally, “FAO raised awareness on food loss and waste with a global estimate in 2011” and it was eventually reflected in the SDG Target 12.3. To measure progress towards this target, the expert community came up with the concept of two indices: the FAO Food Loss Index and the UNEP Food Waste Index.

A number of targets should be met to achieve SDG 12 of “Responsible consumption and production”, namely “reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses” and “halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels” by 2030.

Meeting this target is hampered by poor data collection. “Reliable nationally representative data on losses are generally not available (7 percent official data reported yearly in FAOSTAT, 42 Countries reported in 2019)”, the FAO expert noted.

“Food loss is a complex issue, often with multiple and interrelated causes operating at different levels,” concluded Mr Robert van Otterdijk. “The e-learning course introduces the FAO Case study methodology for the analysis of critical food loss points. This method focuses on revealing and analyzing the multidimensional causes of losses in selected food supply chains, identification of critical loss points, and recommendation of feasible food loss reduction solutions and strategies.”

Mr Toine Timmermans, Director of “Together Against Food Waste” (Netherlands), explained how to be “resourceful with Food” and pave “the way forward in food waste prevention across Europe.”

Given the fact that the EU countries produce 88 million tons of waste per year, which is equivalent of 20 percent of all food produced in EU, Mr Timmermans highlighted Six steps listed in their Roadmap aimed to achieve a tangible result by 2030, reducing food losses and waste by half:

• Reduction of food waste at consumers’ level

• Increase re-distribution to donations and food banks

• Reduction of food waste in the out-of-home channel

• Reduction of food waste in the retail channel

• Utilisation and conversion of surplus from food supply chain

• Reduction of food losses in the post-harvest supply chain

“Dutch are on the front food in the fight against food waste. In 2019 the rate of food waste per person was 34.3 kg – nearly 7 kg less than in 2016,” concluded Mr Toine Timmermans.

In the subsequent general discussion with the participation of Russian experts, Ms Katerina Antonevich, Assistant Liaison Officer of the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, spoke about the challenges in the field of FLW, noting that in Russia "there is no body that would monitor losses at all stages "from the field to the counter", in households there are no economic incentives that are present in many countries of the world and have already proven their effectiveness". However, as the FAO expert noted, recently there are more and more manufacturers of innovative new food products, for example, farmers who place refrigerators with their growing products directly in stores, this way helping to reduce losses. She drew attention to the FAOLOR's annual SAVE FOOD conference on Food Loss and Waste Reduction.

Summing up the discussion, Dr Natalia Karlova, Head of the Department of Agrarian Markets, Institute for Agrarian Studies, HSE University, shared her assessment of the perception of the problem of FLW: "Our country has not yet formed a general conceptual view of the problem of food loss and waste, it is perceived only in terms of its impact on the environment."

More than 60 experts, representatives of government authorities, business circles, research organizations and specialized media participated in the conference. Among the participants of the forum were Dr Liz Goodwin, Senior Fellow and Director, Food Loss and Waste, (World Resources Institute), Dr Sigrid Wertheim-Heck, Associate Professor in Sustainable Food Systems, Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands), Ms Julia Bunina, Sustainable Development Business Partner (IKEA) and Dr Ilya Lomakin-Rumyantsev, Director of the Consumer Market Development Center of Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO.

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 You can watch the recording of the discussion here.

For more information on FAO activities in reducing food loss and waste and strengthening food security, please visit the website.