Global hunger isn’t about a lack of food. Right now, the world produces enough food to nourish every child, woman and man on the planet.

But nearly a third of all food produced each year is squandered or lost before it can be consumed.

In many rich countries, this food waste happens in the kitchen — when we prepare foods that go uneaten, or leave food to spoil in fridges and kitchen cabinets.

For millions of people in developing countries, this food waste happens at harvest time. Poor storage facilities in farms lead to pest infestations and mould ruining crops. Lack of access to technology and markets means many farmers are forced to watch their crops rot in fields as the labour and financial investment required to harvest them is often unavailable.

Along with chronic poverty, conflict and economic shocks, food loss is one of the root causes of hunger worldwide. Food loss also represents a waste of the very resources used to produce food — such as land, water and energy.

Food wastage: Key facts and figures

Here’s what you need to know:

·         One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. This amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year, worth approximately US$1 trillion.

·         All the food produced but never eaten would be sufficient to feed two billion people. That’s more than twice the number of undernourished people across the globe.

·         If wasted food were a country, it would be the third-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the USA and China.

·         Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa each year.

·         In developing countries, 40 per cent of losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels. In industrialized countries, more than 40 per cent of losses happen at retail and consumer levels.

·         Food wastage’s carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year.

·         The total volume of water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted (250km3) is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva.

·         Similarly, 1.4 billion hectares of land – 28 percent of the world’s agricultural area – is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted.

·         Agriculture is responsible for a majority of threats to at-risk plant and animal species tracked by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

·         A low percentage of all food wastage is composted: much of it ends up in landfills, and represents a large part of municipal solid waste. Methane emissions from landfills represents one of the largest sources of GHG emissions from the waste sector.

·         Home composting can potentially divert up to 150 kg of food waste per household per year from local collection authorities.

·         Developing countries suffer more food losses during agricultural production, while in middle- and high-income regions, food waste at the retail and consumer level tends to be higher.

·         The direct economic consequences of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually.