World wastes 19 per cent of its food, UN report says

This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on March 28, 2024.

The world wasted an estimated 19 per cent of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report.

The UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report, published Wednesday, tracks the progress of countries to halve food waste by 2030.

The UN said the number of countries reporting for the index nearly doubled from the first report in 2021. The 2021 report estimated that 17 per cent of the food produced globally in 2019, or 931 million tonnes , was wasted, but authors warned against direct comparisons because of the lack of sufficient data from many countries.

The report is co-authored by UNEP and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), an international charity.

Researchers analyzed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilograms of food annually, equal to at least a billion meals wasted worldwide daily. Most of the waste — 60 per cent — came from households. About 28 per cent came from food service, or restaurants, with about 12 per cent from retailers.

“It is a travesty,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, the focal point for food waste at UNEP.

Author: Ray Nakano

Ray is a retired, third generation Japanese Canadian born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. He resides in Toronto where he worked for the Ontario Government for 28 years. Ray was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2011 and practises in the Plum Village tradition, supporting sanghas in their mindfulness practice. Ray is very concerned about our climate crisis. He has been actively involved with the ClimateFast group (https://climatefast.ca) for the past 5 years. He works to bring awareness of our climate crisis to others and motivate them to take action. He has created the myclimatechange.home.blog website, for tracking climate-related news articles, reports, and organizations. He has created mobilizecanada.ca to focus on what you can do to address the climate crisis. He is always looking for opportunities to reach out to communities, politicians, and governments to communicate about our climate crisis and what we need to do. He says: “Our world is in dire straits. We have to bend the curve on our heat-trapping pollutants in the next few years if we hope to avoid the most serious impacts of human-caused global warming. Doing nothing is not an option. We must do everything we can to create a livable future for our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations.”