While a third of humanity faces food insecurity, an equivalent of one billion meals go to waste every day, a new report by the UN environment agency (UNEP) revealed on Wednesday. One fifth of food is thrown away.<\/p>\n
The UN Environment Programme\u2019s\u00a0Food Waste Index Report 2024\u00a0highlights that latest data from 2022 shows 1.05 billion tonnes of food went to waste.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Some\u00a019 per cent of food available to consumers was lost overall\u00a0at retail, food service, and household levels.<\/p>\n
That is in addition to around\u00a013 per cent of food lost in the supply chain, as estimated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), from post-harvest up to the point of sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood waste is a global tragedy. Millions will go hungry today as food is wasted across the world,\u201d said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of\u00a0UNEP, explaining that this ongoing issue not only impacts the global economy but also exacerbates climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.<\/p>\n
Most of the world\u2019s food waste comes from households, totalling 631 million tonnes \u2013 or up to 60 per cent – of the total food squandered. The food service and retail sectors were responsible for 290 and 131 million tonnes accordingly.<\/p>\n
On average,\u00a0each person wastes 79 kilogrammes of food annually. This is the equivalent of\u00a01.3 meals every day for everyone in the world\u00a0impacted by hunger, the report authors underscore.<\/p>\n
The problem is not confined to affluent nations. Following a near doubling of data coverage since the 2021 Food Waste Index Report was published, there has been increased convergence between rich and poor.<\/p>\n
High-income, upper-middle income, and lower-middle income countries differ in average levels of household food waste by just seven kilogrammes per capita per year.<\/p>\n
The bigger divide comes in the\u00a0variations between urban and rural populations.<\/p>\n
In middle-income countries, for example, rural areas are generally wasting less. One possible explanation is in the recycling of food scraps for pets, animal feed, and home composting in the countryside.<\/p>\n
The report recommends focusing efforts on\u00a0strengthening food waste reduction and composting\u00a0in cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":1,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[824,9334,1919],"region":[26],"source":[1538],"country":[1920],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/116877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/116877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116878,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/116877\/revisions\/116878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=116877"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=116877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}