On International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD said tackling food waste can have huge benefits for the environment.
“Today, the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste seeks to promote awareness and collective action to reduce food loss and waste. It is something that we can all look at in our daily lives and improve upon, whether in business or in our household. If all of us take one small step to change our habits, and value the food that our farmers and fishers produce, we can all move forward in reducing the amount of food waste we produce,” said the Minister.
An estimated 14% of the world's food is lost between harvest and retail, and an estimated 17% is wasted in retail and at the consumption level. This food loss and waste accounts for 8%-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions – contributing to climate change and extreme weather events. Food loss and waste also means wasting the resources that went into producing that food, including labour, land, water and energy.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include a commitment to halving per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains.
Reducing Food Loss and Food Waste presents an opportunity for immediate climate benefits while improving the overall sustainability of our food systems – a necessary transformation to ensure better planetary and nutritional outcomes for current and future generations.
Minister McConalogue concluded,
“Today, take a moment to think about the food you waste in your business or in your home. This is an important step towards achieving the goals in our Climate Action Plan and in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
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Editors Note:
The UN General Assembly, on 19 December 2019, designated 29 September as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (A/RES/74/209).
In the resolution, the UNGA recognized that the observance of the International Day would contribute significantly to raising awareness of the importance of the problem and its possible solutions at all levels, and to promote global efforts and collective action towards meeting SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 is about sustainable consumption and production.
SDG 12.3 states
"By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses."
For more tips on how we, as consumers, can reduce food waste click:
Do Good - Save food! (fao.org) and
Stop Food Waste - Reduce your food waste and save yourself money! And
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has supported some very innovative food waste reduction projects under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund (RIDF). For a full list of all RIDF funded projects approved since 2019 please see here.