The National Geographic online new segment on food loss and waste just came out (One-Third of Food Is Lost or Wasted: What Can Be Done ). Much of this (including the video) is based on the food loss estimates at the retail and consumer levels done by the Economic Research Services (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Food loss and waste has been flagged as a key challenge to global food security. Since 2013, Chinese Taipei has been implementing the APEC Multi-Year Project (MYP SCE 02 2013A) on “Strengthening Public-Private Partnership to Reduce Food Losses in the Supply Chain.” This is a cross-fora project submitted through the APEC Agricultural Technical Cooperation Working Group (ATCWG) and Policy Partnership on Food Security (PPFS). The preliminary assessments of the APEC region suggested that about 26% of total production of food was either lost or wasted in 2011, of which about 40% occurred in retail and consumption. The total amount of food waste could support 800 million people who are below the poverty line in Asia-Pacific region for 1.32 years.

The purpose of this workshop is four-fold: 1) to identify the current issues by providing an overview of retailers’ and consumers’ decision making processes and behaviors relating to food waste; 2) to highlight a range of tools and strategies (with special emphasis on innovative technologies) for encouraging retailer and consumer change towards more food waste-friendly practices; 3) to support the member economies’ authorities in developing coherent methods in harmony with the UN FAO’s approach for acquiring food loss and waste data covering all sectors of the food chain; and 4) to enhance public-private partnership and involvement in food waste reduction by showcasing successful business models and best practices of collaboration in the APEC region. This timely and novel workshop will help achieve the goals of the APEC Food Security Roadmap Towards 2020 in a number of key ways. Importantly, it will provide an opportunity for the small-holders and private sectors to find partners for collaborations in food waste reduction. It will also offer policy makers practical ideas for data sharing and toolkit development that can be applied to other agricultural trade and sustainable development issues. In addition, policies and actionable strategies to achieve the goals of the APEC Food Security Roadmap Towards 2020 will be recommended to the ATCWG and PPFS.