Food Losses and Waste: A Global Overview with a Focus on Near East and North Africa Region

Sinisa Berja, Roberto Capone, Philipp Debs and Hamid El Bilali

International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development (IJAMAD), 2018, vol. 08, issue 01

Abstract: Food losses refer to edible food mass decrease throughout the human food chain. Food losses occurring at consumption stage are called food waste. Food Losses and Waste (FLW) represent one of the most critical social, economic and ecological challenges facing humanity, besides being also an ethical issue. FAO data show that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. There are no precise and accurate data regarding food waste in Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. The review paper aims at providing insights about the extent of FLW in NENA region with a special focus on Arab countries and Iran. The paper explores linkages between food waste and food security. Moreover, it analyses the economic and environmental implications of FLW. FLW vary depending on food type, country and season. Generally speaking, postharvest losses are significant in this region for most of commodity groups. It is estimated that FLW amount to 34% of food supply in NENA region. FLW undermine the very foundations of food security and amount to major depletion of resources (e.g. water, land, energy) and produce needlessly greenhouse gases. They also represent a wasted investment that reduces farmers’ incomes and increase consumers’ expenses. Therefore, food waste reduction is crucial for improving the sustainability of the food supply chain and achieving food and nutrition security in the region.

Keywords: Food; Security; and; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/292516/files/I ... 201_Pages%201-16.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ijamad:292516

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.292516

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development (IJAMAD) from Iranian Association of Agricultural Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().