Utrecht — According to the just released 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, in 2023, an estimated 28.9 percent of the global population – 2.33 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure. And in low-income countries, more than 70 percent of their populations are unable to afford a healthy diet.
This is not fundamentally about a shortage of food - at least not at a global level. 13% of food is lost before it ever reaches a market, and another 17% is wasted before it ever reaches a stomach. The average cost of this loss and waste: $400 billion from the pre-retail loss alone, and estimates of more than $1 trillion overall.
The amount of food wasted per person per year is enough to feed one person a healthy diet for 18 days. Put another way, according to FAO estimates, the food that is lost and wasted each year could feed 1.26 billion hungry people.
Solving a food waste problem in countries like the US - where 38% of all food goes unsold or eaten - would not end all the tragic cases of hunger around the world, including a crisis-level famine in Sudan. Still, it's hard to overstate the positive impact on human health that can be gained by stopping food loss and waste.
Nutritious foods are most likely to be wasted: half of all fruits and vegetables produced are lost or wasted in most regions, along with over one-quarter of animal products. Discarding these nutrient-rich foods leaches nutrients from the food system: over 60% of many key micronutrients including iron, zinc, folate, calcium, and vitamin A are lost or wasted globally.
This is a staggering waste of such a precious resource, considering half of young children and two-thirds of women suffer from at least one micronutrient deficiency, and the powerful role that micronutrients can play in raising the world's IQ.
As with most things, climate change is making this worse. Food loss and waste will accelerate under a warming climate: every 2-3°C increase in temperature (up to 10°C) is associated with a 50% decrease in food storage life, with the biggest damage to fruits, vegetables and animal-source foods.
If the global community could achieve the UN's SDG Target 12.3, which aims to halve food loss and waste by 2030, it would increase the supply of key nutrients including vitamin A, folate, and calcium by one-third to one-half of current, inadequate levels in low- and middle-income countries, and avert 1 million deaths per year, mostly due to increased consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Of course, the impact of food and climate goes both ways. Cradle-to-grave emissions from food loss and waste represent half of total greenhouse gas emissions from food systems, which all-in are responsible for a third of global GhG emissions.
One particularly powerful lever to prevent food loss and waste is to invest in stronger and more sustainable cold chains. Some have suggested that preventing perishable food loss by fully expanding cold chain access in developing countries could prevent 550 MT of CO2, more emissions than currently produced by the United Kingdom, while dramatically extending the shelf life of nutritious foods.
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There is some exciting progress happening. This includes initiatives to engage global food and agribusiness companies to reduce food loss in their supply chains, and efforts to finance the acceleration of more energy efficient refrigeration in Ghana, Senegal and Rwanda. There is so much more that needs to be done globally.
We can stop food loss and waste. From the farm to the family table, for our health and for the planet.
Matt Freeman is Executive Director of Stronger Foundations for Nutrition
