world food waste statistics 2019
FAO has three statutory bodies on statistics, composed of senior statistics officials from member countries, which meet every two years: Their role is to review the state of food and agricultural statistics in their respective region, to advise Members on the development and standardization of agricultural statistics within the general framework of FAO’s work and to convene the study groups or other Subsidiary Bodies of national experts required for this purpose. (Literally, tons.) United Kingdom households waste an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one-third of the 21.7 million tonnes purchased. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted or lost every year. Food loss and waste also amount to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labor, and capital, and needlessly produce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming and climate change. Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted. A recent estimate by the Ministry of Food Processing is that agricultural produce worth 580 billion Rupees is wasted in India each year (Rediff News, 2007 cited in Lundqvist et al., 2008). World. Total per capita food production for human consumption is about 900 kg a year in rich countries, almost twice the 460 kg a year produced in the poorest regions. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Losses at the farm level are probably about 15–35 per cent, depending on the industry. Data are disseminated by country, with global coverage, over the period 1990–2018, with annual updates. FAO is dedicated to collecting, analysing, interpreting and disseminating food and agriculture statistics that are relevant for decision-making. and food waste in 2019, the majority of which as major food businesses needing to implement part of the call for action by Champions 12.3 Chair ... the UK is the first country in the world to set a nationwide plan towards delivering SDG 12.3 and halve food waste3 by 2030. An updated guide for measurement: from collection to action, New FAOSTAT data release: Consumer price indices and food inflation (September 2020), Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equity Division (ESP), Animal Production and Health Division (NSA), Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP), Regional Commission for Agriculture Statistics in Africa (AFCAS), Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS), FAO/OEA-CIE/IICA Working Group on Agricultural and Livestock Statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean and Latin America (IICA), Statistics Quality Assurance Framework (SQAF), Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, Principles Governing International Statistical Activities (CCSA), ISI’s Declaration on Professional Ethics (2010), United Nations Committee of Experts on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG), Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics (CWP), United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS), Committee on Agricultural Statistics of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa. April 4, 2019 by Tommy's Superfoods Leave a Comment. FAO also supports member countries in the collection, dissemination and uptake of data to formulate policies and plans or to better orient investments. Food waste is currently generating eight percent of … Farmer-buyer agreements can be helpful to increase the level of coordination. What a Waste is a global project to aggregate data on solid waste management from around the world. For some crops such as fruits, vegetables, and root crops, being less hardy than cereals, post-harvest losses can reach 50 per cent (Voices Newsletter, 2006). Waste management statistics and overall recycling measures Key Highlights. The value of the wasted food is over £20 billion ($26.2 billion USD) and is linked to more than 25 million tons of GHG emissions. Waste composition differs across income levels, reflecting varied patterns of consumption. By 2019, approximately 53.6 million metric tons was produced. The amount of food wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world's annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010). FAO’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Data Portal provides access to the 21 SDG indicators under FAO custodianship as well as key information to support countries in tracking progress towards SDGs. In many African countries, the post-harvest losses of food cereals are estimated at 25 per cent of the total crop harvested. FAOSTAT provides free access to food and agriculture statistics (including crop, livestock, and forestry sub-sectors) for over 245 countries and territories and covers all FAO regional groupings from 1961 to the most recent year available. Humankind currently produces two billion tonnes … In fields food is lost due to crop pests and diseases. Global and regional consumer price indices (CPI) measure food inflation for a group of countries at different geographical scales: sub-regional (e.g. The retail sector has comparatively high rates of loss of about 26 per cent, while supermarkets, surprisingly, only lose about 1 per cent. It draws exclusively on data collected in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and Council on waste statistics.. In developing countries, 40 per cent of losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels while in industrialized countries more than 40 per cent of losses happen at retail and consumer levels. 1 That’s 80 billion pounds of food and equates to more than $161 billion 2, approximately 219 pounds 3 of … European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and International Monetary Fund (IMF)]. While the Food Waste Index is still a work in progress, the first Food Loss Index is included in the latest FAO annual report, The State of Food and Agriculture 2019. Some 23 million tonnes of food cereals, 12 million tonnes of fruits, and 21 million tonnes of vegetables are lost each year, with a total estimated value of 240 billion Rupees. (FAO, 2013). Food waste is a problem in itself in a world where over 800 million people suffer from hunger and undernourishment. According to national statistics, over 620 kilograms of food per person go to waste in Norway. When we surveyed 2,101 British adults in April 2019, the main reasons people gave for not wanting to recycle their food waste were: Several people also mentioned maggots in bins and caddies, which are a result of flies laying eggs on food. Statistics show that China wastes 50 million tonnes of grain annually, accounting for one-tenth of the country's total grain output. See our Sustainable Materials Management web area for relevant information and our S… In the home food waste is worth £700 per year to the average UK family ($2,275 in the USA), which collectively adds up to £14 billion per year. The State of Food and Agriculture 2019: Moving forward on food loss and waste reduction Format Analysis Source. Food losses and waste amount to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries. Cumulative losses in Tanzania amount to about 59.5 million litres of milk each year, over 16 per cent of total dairy production during the dry season, and 25 per cent in the wet season. This is a shocking statistic which unfortunately becomes less surprising the more you learn about the growing problem of food waste in America. © United Nations Environment Programme Terms of Use, Facts: Uncovering the global food scandal, Traditional and indigenous ways of preserving food. The FAO’s statistical system operates under the oversight of the Office of Chief statistician and it consists of a statistics division, statistics units embedded in technical departments and a Data Lab for Statistical Innovation. This would deliver an annual reduction in food going to waste (from farm The Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) is an inter-agency platform to enhance food market transparency and policy response for food security. Initial estimates indicate that, on average, around 14% of the world’s food is lost between harvest and retail. A comprehensive list of FAO Statistical activities is included in the Statistical Programme of Work. Country and regional consumer price indices are updated in FAOSTAT on a quarterly basis. Driven by rapid urbanization and growing populations, global annual waste generation is expected to jump to 3.4 billion tonnes over the next 30 years, up … This amounts to more than $5,000 per capita/year. In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. The study identified a lack of coordination between actors in the supply chain as a contributing factor. Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes). This is despite the fact that the country mostly imports food products from other countries. How local and global agricultural markets can contribute to sustainable development while leaving no one behind. For more resources, please refer to this page. This means that approximately 32 per cent of all food purchased per year is not eaten. All these people could be fed by less than a quarter of the food lost or wasted in the US and Europe. In addition to supporting the regular collection of high-quality dietary data following standardized methodologies, the publication also aims to promote dialogues on and appropriate application of the data towards informing policy and programming decisions and monitoring and evaluation of nutrition outcomes and progress at global, regional, and country levels. Additionally, raising awareness among industries, retailers, and consumers as well as finding beneficial use for food that is presently thrown away are useful measures to decrease the amount of losses and waste. All of this plays into the overall problem where a significant amount of food is wasted each year. Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world. How much food waste is there in the United States? The Organization also participates in several Committee of experts and working groups under the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) (the highest body of the global statistical system bringing together the Chief Statisticians from all UN member states) as well as other regional statistical coordination bodies relevant to FAO’s statistical mandate. Overall, losses amount to around US$90 billion–US$100 billion a year (Jones, 2004 cited in Lundqvist et al., 2008). New FAOSTAT data release: Pesticides use (global, regional and country trends 1990–2018), The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO) 2020 Edition (new interactive story available), Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women. Today resource-efficient plastics are present in an infinite range of products and applications helping us to save energy, CO 2 emissions, water and even food. The database contains data and information from openly accessible reports and studies measuring food loss and waste across food products, stages of the value chain, and geographical areas. Most of the food waste (4.1 million tonnes or 61 per cent) is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed (WRAP, 2008; Knight and Davis, 2007). Per capita waste by consumers is between 95-115 kg a year in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeastern Asia, each throw away only 6-11 kg a year. In Uganda, approximately 27 per cent of all milk produced is lost, equivalent to US$23 million/year (FAO, 2004). While significant, this figure is less than an earlier FAO loss estimate of one-third of all food. The biggest waste producers worldwide: Sensonseo Global Waste Index 2019. The 6 per cent reduction in the amount of waste generated compared to 2018 is the third yearly reduction since 2017. The problem with food waste begins life at the start of the food production process which includes the growing of crops, livestock and even during the manufacturing process. The Food and Agriculture Microdata (FAM) Catalogue provides access to micro datasets collected through farm and household surveys which contain information related to agriculture, food security and nutrition. FAO Statistics Quality Assurance Framework (SQAF), adopted in 2014, and the Corporate Statistical Standards adopted more recently, set out the principles and recommended best practices to ensure that FAO statistical production processes and statistical outputs are of the highest possible quality. In Kenya, around 95 million litres of milk, worth around US$22.4 million, are lost each year. At the retail level, large quantities of food are wasted due to quality standards that over-emphasize appearance. Food waste in America has skyrocketed in recent years, with 103 million tons (81.4 billion pounds) of food waste generated in 2018, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the equivalent of over 450,000 Statue of Liberties.. Food that could have ended up in the rubbish bin is currently being sent to about 600 people a week in Bedford. It strongly contributes to climate change because greenhouse gases are emitted during food production and distribution activities, and methane is released during the decay of wasted food. Losses for cereals and oilseeds are lower, about 10–12 per cent, according to the Food Corporation of India. In East Africa, economic losses in the dairy sector due to spoilage and waste could average as much as US$90 million/year (FAO, 2004). The Food Waste Atlas enables countries, cities, companies and other organizations to track food loss and waste, so they can play their part in creating a sustainable food system for all. These account to a total of 335,000 tons of food going to waste in the country. It is also estimated that enough food to feed 200 million people, about one-sixth of the country's population, goes to waste annually. In developing countries, food waste occurs mainly at the early stages of the food value chain and can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in harvesting techniques as well as storage and cooling facilities. In 2020, FAO has also endorsed the ISI’s Declaration on Professional Ethics (2010) to encourage all its statisticians to adopt high-standard professional values and ethics in statistics. Differing from the situation in developing countries, the behavior of consumers plays a huge part in industrialized countries. This waste becomes a bigger problem every year, with an increase of almost 60 million tons between 1990 and 2015. FAO; Posted 14 Oct 2019 Originally published Africa) and global (all countries). The food currently lost or wasted in Latin America could feed 300 million people (FAO, 2013). As the UN agency responsible for the development of methods and standards on food and agriculture statistics and for their implementation in countries, the Organization acts as the Secretariat of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG) and the Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics (CWP). It contains statistics on the agricultural use of major pesticide groups and of relevant chemical families. Food losses and waste amount to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries. Check out the new FAOSTAT data release on pesticides use. FLW represents wastage of resources, including the land, water, labor, and energy used to produce food. This article gives an overview on waste generation and treatment in the European Union (EU) and several non-member countries. It is estimated that about half of the water used to produce this food also goes to waste since agriculture is the largest human use of water. Since 2010, the volume of e-waste generated globally has been steadily rising. have shaped the world bringing safety, hygiene, comfort and wellbeing to our society. This database features the statistics collected through the effort, covering nearly all countries and over 330 cities. Sound and timely statistics are key to inform decisions, policies and investments that tackle issues related to food and agriculture, from hunger and malnutrition to rural poverty, from food systems productivity to the sustainable use of natural resources or to climate change. • Globally, food waste consumes 21% of all fresh water.4 EPA TAKING ACTION TO REDUCE FOOD WASTE Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month - EPA and USDA worked with President Trump to successfully designate April 2019 as “Winning on Reducing Food Waste Month” to garner national attention on the need to address this important issue. Thirty percent of the world’s food wasted. FAO makes a significant contribution to global discussions related to food and agricultural statistics through its participation in international and regional statistical fora. In Sub-Saharan Africa, post-harvest food losses are estimated to be worth US $ 4 billion per year - or enough to feed at least 48 million people. According to the food waste statistics from 2019, it’s estimated that around 10 million tons of food are wasted in the UK every year. In 2019, about 7.23 million tonnes of solid waste was generated, of which 4.25 million tonnes were recycled. They contribute to … 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted a year. Global food losses and food waste: Extent, causes and prevention Further, it identifies causes of food losses and possible ways of preventing them. Nearly 1/2 of all fruit & vegetables produced globally are wasted each year – UN. These Facts and Figures are current through calendar year 2015. In medium and high-income countries, food is wasted and lost mainly at later stages in the supply chain. EPA began collecting and reporting data on the generation and disposition of waste in the United States more than 30 years ago. Only 3% of the country land is under cultivation a portion that is not enough to feed its population.Despite this, baked food, rotten fruits and vegetables area common sight in most dustbins in the country. Fourteen percent of the food produced globally is lost during the post-harvest production stage before reaching the retail stage of the food system, according to the newly-released FAO 2019 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report. Visit FAO’s COVID-19 Portal for an overview of FAO’s action in regard to the outbreak. It provides market information on four grains particularly important in international food markets: wheat, maize, rice and soybeans. The food currently lost in Africa could feed 300 million people. Middle Africa), regional (e.g. In a survey of more than 1,600 households in Australia in 2004, on behalf of the Australia Institute, it was concluded that on a country-wide basis, $10.5 billion was spent on items that were never used or thrown away. This number includes losses that occur at every step in the production of food. Strengthening the supply chain through the direct support of farmers and investments in infrastructure, transportation, as well as in an expansion of the food and packaging industry could help to reduce the amount of food loss and waste. Online Training Course on Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) using CSPro Android and Survey Solutions, 15-03-2021 – 07-05-2021 (Free MOOC offered by ADB and FAO RAP), Webinar on Forest Data for Climate Action: the Importance of Legal and Institutional Frameworks, 03-10-2021 – 06-10-2021 (Bern, Switzerland). It is for this reason that developing and implementing methodologies and standards to assist countries in generating sound data and information is at the core of FAO’s statistical work. The Food Loss and Waste database is the largest online collection of data on both food loss and food waste and causes reported throughout the literature. In September 2018, the World Bank announced that our global waste production is predicted to rise by 70 per cent by 2050 unless we take urgent action. In the United States 30 per cent of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each year. Each year, tons of food is thrown out before it’s eaten. Inefficient processing and drying, poor storage, and insufficient infrastructure are instrumental factors in food waste in Africa. Here’s some “food” for thought: The United States is the global leader in food waste, with Americans discarding nearly 40 million tons of food every year. At international level, FAO is the leading UN agency responsible for the development of methods and standards on food and agriculture statistics and for their implementation in countries. Over 2 billion people will join our planet … Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food. The amount of food that is wasted each year will rise by a third by 2030, when 2.1bn tonnes will either be lost or thrown away, equivalent to 66 tonnes per second, according to new analysis. The results of the study suggest that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. The food currently wasted in Europe could feed 200 million people (FAO, 2013). A Natural Resources Defense Council study of food waste in several cities found that 76 percent of people think they throw away less food than the … The issue of global food waste is not just about consumers creating waste. High-income countries generate relatively less food and green waste, at 32 percent of total waste, and generate more dry waste that could be recycled, including plastic, paper, cardboard, metal, and glass, which account for 51 percent of waste. The SQAF is based on the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities (CCSA), which guide the statistical activities of national and international organizations, and is inspired by the quality frameworks adopted by other supranational and international organizations [e.g. Food is also lost because of inefficient harvesting methods, transportation and storage. Global quantitative food waste per year is roughly 30 per cent for cereals, 40-50 per cent for root crops, fruits, and vegetables, 20 per cent for oilseeds, meat and dairy plus 30 per cent for fish. Every dollar spent restoring degraded forests can result in $30 in economic benefits. This amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes per year. In this role, the Organization acts as the Secretariat of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG) and the Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics … An estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted annually as 800 million people go hungry. Finally, FAO also co-organizes, in collaboration each time with a different member country, the International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS), which is held every three years under the auspices of the Committee on Agricultural Statistics of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). Industrialized and developing countries dissipate roughly the same quantities of food - respectively 670 and 630 million tonnes. The Agency uses this information to measure the success of materials management programs across the country and to characterize the national waste stream. Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted. Most of this (5.9 million tonnes or 88 per cent) is currently collected by local authorities.