Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-5 (section)

==== 5.5.2.5 Food loss and waste, food security, and land use ====

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Food loss and waste impacts food security by reducing global and local food availability, limiting food access due to an increase in food prices and a decrease of producer income, affecting future food production due to the unstainable use of natural resources (HLPE 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r912|912]]</sup> ). Food loss is defined as the reduction of edible food during production, postharvest, and processing, whereas food discarded by consumers is considered as food waste (FAO 2011b <sup>[[#fn:r913|913]]</sup> ). Combined food loss and waste amount to 25–30% of total food produced ( ''medium confidence'' ). During 2010–2016, global food loss and waste equalled 8–10% of total GHG emissions ( ''medium confidence'' ); and cost about 1 trillion USD per year ( ''low confidence'' ) (FAO 2014b <sup>[[#fn:r914|914]]</sup> ).

A large share of produced food is lost in developing countries due to poor infrastructure, while a large share of produced food is wasted in developed countries (Godfray et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r915|915]]</sup> ). Changing consumer behaviour to reduce per capita over-consumption offers substantial potential to improve food security by avoiding related health burdens (Alexander et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r916|916]]</sup> ; Smith 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r917|917]]</sup> ) and reduce emissions associated with the extra food (Godfray et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r918|918]]</sup> ). In 2007, around 20% of the food produced went to waste in Europe and North America, while around 30% of the food produced was lost in Sub-Saharan Africa (FAO 2011b <sup>[[#fn:r919|919]]</sup> ). During the last 50 years, the global food loss and waste increased from around 540 Mt in 1961 to 1630 Mt in 2011 (Porter et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r920|920]]</sup> ).

In 2011, food loss and waste resulted in about 8–10% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions. The mitigation potential of reduced food loss and waste from a full life-cycle perspective, for example, considering both food supply chain activities and land-use change, was estimated as 4.4 GtCO <sub>2</sub> -eq yr <sup>–1</sup> (FAO 2015a, 2013b <sup>[[#fn:r921|921]]</sup> ). At a global scale, loss and waste of milk, poultry meat, pig meat, sheep meat, and potatoes are associated with 3% of the global agricultural N <sub>2</sub> O emissions (more than 200 Gg N <sub>2</sub> O-N yr–1 or 0.06 GtCO <sub>2</sub> -eq yr <sup>–1</sup> ) in 2009 (Reay et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r922|922]]</sup> ). For the USA, 35% of energy use, 34% of blue water use, 34% of GHG emissions, 31% of land use, and 35% of fertiliser use related to an individual’s food-related resource consumption were accounted for as food waste and loss in 2010 (Birney et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r923|923]]</sup> ).

Similar to food waste, over-consumption (defined as food consumption in excess of nutrient requirements), leads to GHG emissions (Alexander et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r924|924]]</sup> ). In Australia for example, over-consumption accounts for about 33% GHGs associated with food (Hadjikakou 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r925|925]]</sup> ). In addition to GHG emissions, over-consumption can also lead to severe health conditions such as obesity or diabetes. Over-eating was found to be at least as large a contributor to food system losses (Alexander et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r926|926]]</sup> ). Similarly, food system losses associated with consuming resource-intensive animal-based products instead of nutritionally comparable plant-based alternatives are defined as ‘opportunity food losses’. These were estimated to be 96, 90, 75, 50, and 40% for beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs, respectively, in the USA (Shepon et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r927|927]]</sup> ).

Avoiding food loss and waste will contribute to reducing emissions from the agriculture sector. By 2050, agricultural GHG emissions associated with production of food that might be wasted may increase to 1.9–2.5 GtCO <sub>2</sub> -eq yr <sup>–1</sup> (Hiç et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r928|928]]</sup> ). When land-use change for agriculture expansion is also considered, halving food loss and waste reduces the global need for cropland area by around 14% and GHG emissions from agriculture and land-use change by 22–28% (4.5 GtCO <sub>2</sub> -eq yr <sup>–1</sup> ) compared to the baseline scenarios by 2050 (Bajželj et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r929|929]]</sup> ). The GHG emissions mitigation potential of food loss and waste reduction would further increase when lifecycle analysis accounts for emissions throughout food loss and waste through all food system activities.

Reducing food loss and waste to zero might not be feasible. Therefore, appropriate options for the prevention and management of food waste can be deployed to reduce food loss and waste and to minimise its environmental consequences. Papargyropoulou et al. (2014 <sup>[[#fn:r930|930]]</sup> ) proposed the Three Rs (i.e., reduction, recovery and recycle) options to prevent and manage food loss and waste. A wide range of approaches across the food supply chain is available to reduce food loss and waste, consisting of technical and non-technical solutions (Lipinski et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r931|931]]</sup> ). However, technical solutions (e.g., improved harvesting techniques, on-farm storage, infrastructure, packaging to keep food fresher for longer, etc.) include additional costs (Rosegrant et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r932|932]]</sup> ) and may have impacts on local environments (FAO 2018b <sup>[[#fn:r933|933]]</sup> ). Additionally, all parts of food supply chains need to become efficient to achieve the full reduction potential of food loss and waste (Lipinski et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r934|934]]</sup> ).

Together with technical solutions, approaches (i.e., non-technical solutions) to changes in behaviours and attitudes of a wide range of stakeholders across the food system will play an important role in reducing food loss and waste. Food loss and waste can be recovered by distributing food surplus to groups affected by food poverty or converting food waste to animal feed (Vandermeersch et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r935|935]]</sup> ). Unavoidable food waste can also be recycled to produce energy based on biological, thermal and thermochemical technologies (Pham et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r936|936]]</sup> ). Additionally, strategies for reducing food loss and waste also need to consider gender dynamics with participation of females throughout the food supply chain (FAO 2018f <sup>[[#fn:r937|937]]</sup> ).

In summary, reduction of food loss and waste can be considered as a climate change mitigation measure that provides synergies with food security and land use ( ''robust evidence, medium agreement'' ). Reducing food loss and waste reduces agricultural GHG emissions and the need for agricultural expansion for producing excess food. Technical options for reduction of food loss and waste include improved harvesting techniques, on-farm storage, infrastructure, and packaging. However, the beneficial effects of reducing food loss and waste will vary between producers and consumers, and across regions. Causes of food loss (e.g., lack of refrigeration) and waste (e.g., behaviour) differ substantially in developed and developing countries ( ''robust evidence, medium agreement'' ). Additionally, food loss and waste cannot be avoided completely.

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