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COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2016

44

3.6.

Food Losses and Wastes

According to the FAO estimation, roughly one-third of the annual global food

production, i.e., 1.3 billion tons of food, is lost in the supply chain before reaching to the final

consumer. This is equivalent to more than half of the world's annual cereals crop production.

In other words, about 24 percent of all calories which is currently produced cannot be utilized

for human consumption

28

. Moreover, about 350 million tons of food is wasted by consumers at

global level. This situation means that huge amounts of resources such as labor, land, water,

fertilizer, other inputs and energy are used in vain during food supply chain

29

.

“The decrease in edible food mass throughout the part of the supply chain that

specifically leads to edible food for human consumption

30

is called food losses. Therefore, food

losses refer to pre-consumer stage losses which are the losses in production, post-harvest

handling, storage, processing, and distribution stages. The food losses caused by consumers

are called food waste, which is occurred at the end of the food chain. Food losses and waste

occurred in different stages in the supply chain are categorized and called as follows;

On-Farm Losses:

Any losses in the agricultural production stage till completion of

harvesting are called on-farm losses.

Post-harvest Losses:

Post-harvest losses refer to food damage or degradation of food

during the different stages such as handling, storage, processing, packaging, and distribution.

In other words, any food losses or degradation of food from the agricultural production stage

to the moment of final consumption is defined as post-harvest losses.

Food Waste:

Food waste refers to consumer stage losses in food supply chain.

According to the research commissioned by FAO, the food losses occurs especially

during the early and middle stages of food supply chain, which is production and post-harvest

period in developing countries. As demonstrated in Figure 37, most of the food resources are

lost in the phases of production and handling and storage in developing countries. These losses

are mainly based on technical limitations and derived from insufficient modern harvest, post-

harvest and storage machinery and equipment

31

. Food waste in developing countries are

relatively less in the developing countries since limited income and food resources do not

allow to buy large amount of food products. Therefore, consumers buy only enough food for

their own use and this situation decreases the food waste during consumption phase

32

.

28

Searchinger et al., 2013

29

Postharvest Education Foundation, 2013

30

FAO, 2014

31

Ibid.

32

FAO, 2011