16 September 2015
Rome, FAO HQ, Italy

Organizing committee: G77, Permanent Representation of Italy to the United Nations, FAO, University of Bologna.

Background and scope

FAO emphasizes that food loss refers to the decrease in edible food mass available for human consumption throughout the different stages of the food chain: production, post-harvest, processing, and distribution. Food waste refers to the removal from the food supply chain of food which is fit for consumption, by choice, or which has been left to spoil or expire as a result of negligence by the actor - predominantly but not exclusively the final consumer at household level (FAO, 2014).

The “Reducing food losses and waste to enhance food security and nutrition” seminar aims to contribute to the reduction of food losses and waste (FLW) and to enhance food security in developing, emerging and industrialized countries by stimulating the dialogue and sharing experiences among public authorities, food business operators and individual consumers.

The seminar will be organized in two sessions: Session 1 Food Losses: the role of technical innovation and Session 2 The nexus between food waste and food security and nutrition.

The first session will focus on food losses with particular attention on the role of technical innovation and investments aimed to improve harvesting practices, food preparation (the preliminary separation or extraction of the edible from the non-edible portion), food preservation, food processing, food storage and food transportation. What (affordable) technical solutions are already in place? What are the best practices to share? What can be improved?

The second session will focus on food waste with particular attention on the nexus between food waste and food security and nutrition. The FAO - HLPE report “Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems” (FAO, 2014) define the impacts of FLW as related to a reduction of global and local available food, to negative implications on food prices with related economic losses and to the unsustainable use of natural resources on which the future production of food depends. The report also emphasize the implications in terms of quality and nutrient losses, which negatively impact nutrition, and in terms of potential (required) mitigation strategies to handle the variability of production and consumption in time and space. What role for FLW to enhance food security and nutrition?

Key references

FAO (2011), Global food losses and food waste - Extent, causes and prevention. Rome.

FAO (2014), Definitional framework of food loss, Rome.

FAO (2014), HLPE report - Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems, Rome.