The world threw away about 1. 05 billion tons of food in 2022, which is about 19% of all the food made. This information comes from a new United Nations report.
The UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report measures how well countries are doing in cutting their food waste in half by 2030.
The UN said that almost twice as many countries reported for the index compared to the first report in 2021. The 2021 report said that 17% of the food made in the world in 2019, which is 931 million metric tons, was thrown away. But the authors said it’s hard to compare because not all countries have enough data.
The report is written by UNEP and an international charity called Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP).
Experts studied information from different countries about how people buy food and where they buy it from. They discovered that each person throws away about 79 kilograms (about 174 pounds) of food every year, which is the same as at least 1 billion meals wasted every day around the world.
60 per cent of the waste came from homes. About 28 out of 100 came from restaurants, and about 12 out of 100 came from stores.
“It’s a terrible thing,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, who focuses on food waste at UNEP. “This problem is tough and hard to understand, but if we work together and take action, we can solve it. ”
The report is released when 783 million people in the world are always hungry and many places are having serious food problems. The fighting between Israel and Hamas and the violence in Haiti have made the crisis even worse. Experts are saying that hunger is likely to happen soon in northern Gaza and is getting closer in Haiti.
Throwing away food is a big problem for the whole world. It takes a lot of land and water to grow food, and this harms the environment. It also creates greenhouse gases, like methane, which contribute to global warming.
Losing and throwing away food makes 8 to 10 percent of the gases that make the earth’s temperature hotter. If it was a country, it would be the third biggest one after China and the US.
Fadila Jumare is a project associate at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Nigeria. She has looked at how to stop food from being wasted in Kenya and Nigeria. She said this problem makes things even harder for people who already don’t have enough food and can’t buy healthy food.
Jumare said that when people waste food, it means there is less food for the poor. Jumare was not part of the report.
Brian Roe, a researcher who studies food waste at Ohio State University, said the index is important for addressing food waste. He was not part of the report.
Roe said that if we waste less food, it can bring many good things like saving resources, less harm to the environment, more food security, and more land for other uses. He wasn’t part of the report.
The report said that there has been a big increase in the amount of attention given to food waste in poorer countries. They said that rich countries may need to take the lead in working together with other countries to make rules to reduce food waste.
The report said lots of governments, communities and businesses are working together to reduce food waste and its impact on the environment and water supply. Governments and cities work with food companies to reduce waste by measuring how much food is thrown away.
The report said that giving extra food to food banks and charities is helpful in reducing wasted food from stores.
Food Banking Kenya is a charity that collects extra food from farms, markets, supermarkets, and packing houses. They then give it to schoolchildren and people who are in need. In Kenya, a lot of food is thrown away each year, about 4. 45 million metric tons. This is a big problem that is getting worse.
John Mukuhi, who helps run the group, said, “We help the community by giving them healthy food and also help the environment by polluting less. ”
The people who wrote the report found that there was not a big difference in the amount of wasted food per person in rich and poor countries.
Richard Swannel, who works at WRAP, said that food waste is not just a problem in wealthy countries. “It’s a problem all around the world. ”
“The data clearly shows that there is a problem worldwide that we could all work on tomorrow to save money and help the environment,” he said.