World Environment Day 2013 in Mongolia addressing global food security
The first World Environment Day was celebrated in 1973 to spread awareness about the environment and the need to preserve our biodiversity. The theme this year is Think.Eat.Save, which is a campaign designed to minimise food loss and reduce food wastage.
World Environment Day 2013 (WED) is taking place today in Mongoalia and this years theme is ‘Think.Eat.Save - Reduce Your Foodprint’.
A new working paper, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, shows that more than half of the food lost and wasted in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia occurs close to the consumption stage. By contrast, in developing countries, about two-thirds of the food lost and wasted occurs after harvest and storage.
Reducing Food Loss and Waste was produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and draws on research from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
It makes a range of recommendations including the development of a “food loss and waste protocol”―a global standard for how to measure, monitor, and report food loss and waste. If what gets measured gets managed, then such a protocol could go a long way toward helping governments and companies implement targeted efforts to reduce food loss and waste.
According to the study, which was released today in Mongolia, global host of WED 2013, the world will need about 60 per cent more food calories in 2050 compared to 2006 if global demand continues on its current trajectory.
Halving current rates of food loss and waste, say the authors, would reduce this gap by a fifth. This would also result in major savings in water use, energy, pesticides and fertilizers, and would be a boost for global food security.
From community food banks in Australia, to the use of metal grain silos by farmers in Afghanistan, the WRI and UNEP study showcases simple, low-cost solutions for reducing food loss and waste that are already delivering significant environmental and economic benefits to communities across the globe.
Replicating and expanding these initiatives could significantly reduce the 1.3 billion tons of food lost or discarded worldwide every year, and make major improvements to global resource efficiency.
The report shows, for example, that water used to produce lost or wasted food around the world each year could fill 70 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, while the amount of cropland used to produce wasted food is equivalent to the size of Mexico. Some 28 million tons of fertilizer are used annually to grow this lost and wasted food. The inefficient use of fertilizers is linked to the growth of ‘dead’ coastal zones around the globe and to climate change.
Separate analysis coordinated by the FAO to be published soon indicates that if food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China.
The paper include a number of recommendations, including
- Developing a common global standard for measuring and reporting food loss and waste by governments and the private sector;
- Setting global, national, and corporate food loss and waste reduction targets on the order of 50 percent;
- Doubling investment in reducing post-harvest losses in developing countries; and
- Establishing agencies and organizations in developed countries tasked with reducing food waste.
In addition, UNEP is currently developing a new food waste prevention and reduction tool kit, together with experts, supermarkets, governments and other partners. The initiative will support governments, companies and cities to better assess their own levels of food waste, pinpoint areas in their businesses and communities where food is being needlessly wasted, and devise strategies to reduce this waste. The tool kit is expected to be available for widespread deployment before the end of 2013, and aims to underpin a transition to a less wasteful world.
From the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities in remote rural areas, to major conferences in the fast-expanding capital Ulaanbaatar, issues around food security and sustainability are featuring high on the agenda for World Environment Day in global host country Mongolia.
In the run-up to World Environment Day, internet users have been submitting a host of traditional food-saving ideas and traditions via UNEP’s Facebook page. These include chuño from South America, which involves exposing potatoes to the freezing night air and hot daytime sun for five days, before trampling them to squeeze out any moisture. Chuño can last for several months, or even years.
Beyond Mongolia, thousands of people across the world are taking part in World Environment Day activities to highlight the need to consume and produce food more sustainably.