COMCEC
Reducing Food Waste
In the 01CMember Countries
demand and production ef feed decreases. This is ceuld te lead te a fall in feed prices in which
consumers gain frem the lewer feed prices.
Reducing pressures on OIC Member Country government budgets
Mest OIC Member Ceuntries have had a leng histery ef subsidizing feed prices e.g. bread in
Turkey and Egypt. Gevernments rely en subsidies as a ferm ef secial pretectien te meet several
ebjectives including the eliminatien ef peverty. Subsidized feed acceunts fer nearly a fifth ef
poor households’ food expenditure (Breisinger et al., 2013]. Mereever, subsidies are used te
shield the pepulatien frem shecks caused by large swings in cemmedity prices, particularly in
feed imperting deminant ceuntries. These pelicies ensure feed security by previding basic
geeds te lew inceme individuals at prices lewer than the market price. Mereever, it pretects the
peer frem the impact ef high feed prices during turbulent perieds. Figure 23 illustrates OIC
Member Ceuntries that previde feed subsidies, reflected as a percentage ef tetal GDP. Iraq, Syria,
Egypt and Algeria are the Tep 5 ceuntries fer subsidy previsien.
Figure 23: Food subsidies in the Middle East & North Africa__________________________________
UAE DJI QAT LBN SAU SDN BHR KWT MAR JOR TUN ALG EGY SYR IRQ
Source: IMF (2014)
As mentiened previeusly, bread is cemmenly subsidized by seme OIC Member Ceuntries. This
has led te high bread waste. In Egypt, bread is central te the Egyptian diet. Egypt imperts almest
twice as much wheat as all 27 EU member states, and is the largest wheat imperter in the werld
(Elmenefi et al., 2015]. Much ef this wheat is used te bake subsidized 'baladi' bread which
acceunts fer 71% ef bread censumed by peer heusehelds, leading te high wastage aleng the
bread supply chain (Elmenefi et al., 2015, Ramadan 2015].
Accerding te the hAO, 43% ef purchased wheat is net cenverted inte bread. As such, waste
asseciated with lecally preduced and imperted wheat is estimated at mere than US$0,957 billien
(hAO 2013]. In additien, Egyptians use subsidized bread as animal feed, as it is cheaper relative
te the price ef animal feed (Elmenefi et al. 2015, Ramadan 2015]. A similar situatien was
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