The amount of food wasted every year is estimated to reach 2.5 billion tons, which is almost double the estimate of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
WWF and British grocery retailer Tesco published a report on Wednesday entitled “Waste: Food loss on global farms,” Approximately 40% of the grown food is not eaten, which is higher than the previous estimate of 33%.
The report records the amount of food lost from farm to table, as well as billions of pounds of food wasted in transportation, storage, manufacturing, and processing. The report shows that Europe, the United States and industrialized Asia account for about half of the waste.
“The production of food consumes a lot of land, water and energy, so wasted food can significantly affect climate change-previous estimates indicate that food waste accounts for 8% of greenhouse gases,” and “food waste accounts for 10% of all greenhouse gases “.Gas emissions,” report status.
After combining supply chain losses with waste generated during retail consumption, the report emphasizes the importance of food waste to the environment.
⚠️We waste 1 billion tons more food than previously thought⚠️
This means that up to 40% of the food has never been eaten_
New WWF research reveals the scale of food waste and outlines how we need to act from farm to table __️#Food waste pic.twitter.com/84BsJjfcmC
— World Wide Fund for Nature (@WWF) July 21, 2021
Pete Pearson, head of the WWF Global Food Loss and Waste Initiative, said: “For many years, we have known that food loss and waste is a huge problem that can be minimized, which in turn can reduce the impact of the food system on nature and The impact of climate.” In a Press release.
But he admitted that the latest report “shows us that the problem may be bigger than we thought.”
Tesco CEO Ken Murphy announced further plans to understand how to solve the food waste problem.
“This year, several of our suppliers will report food loss and waste on their own farms for the first time, helping us solve the waste problem at the earliest stage of the supply chain,” he said in the report. Press release.
“Driven to waste” calls for more actions to deal with this “neglected hot spot” of climate change.
“Driven to Waste makes it clear that providing technology and training on farms is not enough; decisions made by companies and governments downstream in the supply chain have a significant impact on the level of food loss or waste on farms,” WWF UK Food Loss and Waste project manager Lilly Da Gama is in Press release.
