{"id":59095,"date":"2015-12-05T00:02:46","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T22:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/new-knowledge-sharing-initiative-to-measure-and-reduce-food-loss-and-waste\/"},"modified":"2015-12-05T00:02:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T22:02:46","slug":"new-knowledge-sharing-initiative-to-measure-and-reduce-food-loss-and-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/new-knowledge-sharing-initiative-to-measure-and-reduce-food-loss-and-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"New knowledge-sharing initiative to measure and reduce food loss and waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <span dir=\"ltr\"><br \/>\n                                                    ROME, Italy, December 4, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212;<br \/>\n                                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the CGIAR research program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) today launched a new initiative to enhance global cooperation on measuring and reducing food loss and waste. The G20 agriculture ministers requested FAO and IFPRI to launch this initiative in Istanbul, Turkey, this past May.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste\u00a0is an information-sharing and coordination network involving diverse stakeholders, such as international organisations, development banks, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector.<\/p>\n<p>\nPlatform partners will work together to enhance the measurement of food loss and waste, exchange knowledge and information, and share best practices to tackle the global challenges of food loss and waste.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThe G20 Platform will enhance our capacity to accurately measure food loss and waste, both in the G20 countries and in low-income countries\u201d said FAO Director-General Jos\u00e9 Graziano da Silva. \u201cIt will bring new expertise and knowledge for improving metrics.\u00a0 It will also respond to countries\u2019 need for knowledge and good practices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWe must coordinate global efforts to reduce food loss and waste to enhance our ability to sustainably eliminate global hunger and undernutrition,\u201d said IFPRI Director-General Shenggen Fan. \u201cThis new platform is a critical step in this direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nCurrently, one-third of global food production \u2013 enough food to feed two billion people for a year \u2013 is lost or wasted annually. The G20 agriculture ministers noted the significant food loss and waste throughout food value chains as \u201ca global problem of enormous economic, environmental and societal significance\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Platform will:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lead efforts to improve the measurement of food loss and waste<br \/>\nBuild capacity to reduce food loss and waste in G20 countries as well as in lower-income nations. This capacity building effort includes \u201cSouth-South\u201d knowledge transfers<br \/>\nProvide evidence-based advocacy on the scope, causes and costs of food loss and waste<br \/>\nMonitor global developments on food loss and waste<br \/>\nProvide multi-agency advisory and technical assistance for work on food loss and waste at the request of governments<\/p>\n<p>The Platform builds on and complements existing mechanisms, such as the Global Community of Practice on Food Loss Reduction, run jointly out of Rome by FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme as well as the World Resources Institute\u2019s Food Loss and Waste Protocol.<\/p>\n<p>\nIt also expands on the work done by the SAVE FOOD Network, as well as IFPRI\u2019s Policies, Institutions and Markets CGIAR research program, an initiative on food loss and waste under a larger portfolio of value chain studies. IFPRI also measures food loss and waste at all stages \u2013 from production and post-production to processing, distribution and consumption \u2013 in order to identify the origin and cost of food loss and waste at the local, regional and global level.<\/p>\n<p>\nFighting hunger by saving food<\/p>\n<p>\nAround 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger. Undernutrition remains widespread with some two billion people lacking essential nutrients like iron, zinc and vitamin A. Juxtaposing this is the rise of overweight and obesity, especially in middle-income countries.<\/p>\n<p>\nFood is lost when it is spoilt or spilled before reaching the final product or retail stage. It is wasted when it spoils during retailing or is discarded by consumers.. Most food loss takes place in post-production, harvesting, transportation and storage and is primarily related to inadequate infrastructure in developing countries. On the other hand, food waste is a problem in the marketing and consumption stages in developed countries.<\/p>\n<p>\nIFPRI studies have found that infrastructure development is essential to achieve lower post-harvest food loss. Cutting food loss, however, is not a low-cost alternative to achieving food security and nutrition. Rather, large-scale reduction in post-harvest food loss requires public and private investments and also supports the long-term productivity growth which contributes to food security.<\/p>\n<p>\nFAO estimates that over 40 percent of root crops, fruits and vegetables are lost or wasted, along with 35 percent of fish, 30 percent of cereals and 20 percent of oilseeds, meat, and dairy products. Total food waste represents an economic value of some $1 trillion annually.<\/p>\n<p>\nFAO studies have also shown that food wastage is responsible for the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, consuming some 250 km3 of water and 1.4 billion hectares of land each year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROME, Italy, December 4, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212; The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the CGIAR research program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) today launched a new initiative to enhance global cooperation on measuring and reducing food loss and waste. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-59095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}