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The International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW) was observed for the fifth time on 29 September 2024.

Stop Food Waste! For People and Planet.

The IDAFLW 2024 highlighted the critical need for financing to bolster efforts to reduce food loss and waste, contribute to achieving climate goals and advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Enormous amounts of resources – land, water, energy, and labour – are used to produce food. When food is lost or wasted, these resources go to waste, impacting the efficiency of food production. In 2021, the percentage of food lost globally after harvest on farm, transport, storage, wholesale, and processing levels was estimated at 13.2 percent (FAO, 2023). In 2022, the food waste occurring at retail, food service and household level was estimated at 19 percent of all food available to consumers (UNEP, 2024).

This impacts not only producers but also consumers and nations, not to mention livelihoods and economic stability. Moreover, food waste in landfills contributes to 8 to 10 percent of total agrifood system emissions, impacting climate change and environmental sustainability. Methane gas produced by food loss and waste is at least twenty eight times more harmful than carbon dioxide in impacting climate change (IPPC, 2021).

Addressing food loss and waste throughout the supply chain, from production to consumption, would improve the overall efficiency of the food system, helping to ensure that more food reaches those in need. Target 12.3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aims to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains by 2030, highlighting the importance of this issue in the broader context of sustainable development.

Reducing food loss and waste is crucial for improving food security and enabling healthy diets; promoting efficient resource use; mitigating hunger; protecting the environment; and fostering more equitable distribution of food resources globally. Reducing food loss and waste is also a climate solution, which countries and communities can employ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Successfully doing so will require a significant increase in the quality and quantity of accessible climate finance.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – specifically SDG 12, Target 12.3 – calls for halving per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains. Target 16 of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) among other issues, also calls for “halving global food waste by 2030”. We need to urgently accelerate the pace of actions to reduce food loss and waste, and transform agrifood systems, so as to meet the SDG 12.3 Target, and that set by the GBF – with tangible benefits for people and the planet.