Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

#RegenesisFact 12. Perhaps the most common of all the proposed solutions for shrinking the impact of the food system is reducing food waste. Of course we should reduce waste. But both the potential for doing so and the impact of doing so have been greatly exaggerated. 🧵

I’ve heard people claim that because roughly one-third of the world’s food is wasted, salvaging it could feed all those who go hungry today, while saving vast tracts of farmland and much of the fertiliser, pesticide and water farmers use.
But the majority is not recoverable.

In the UK, for example, of the two million tonnes a year that’s wasted, a standard industry estimate is that only 250,000 tonnes (one eighth) can be rescued. Organisations like @FareShareUK, using clever interventions, have been able to stretch that a little.

They’ve helped shame the supermarkets into handing over their excess, and helped farmers and manufacturers to reduce food losses. But they’ve probably now extracted most of the accessible surplus from the food chain.

Much of the rest is “post-consumer”: ie it’s the uneaten/half-eaten leftovers that go into your compost bin. Any takers? Thought not.

It might be possible to persuade some people not to buy more than they’re likely to eat, but, given the price of food, people already seek to minimise their costs. Planning is never perfect, and some waste is inevitiable.

The environmental impact of reducing food loss is small by comparison to the impact of changing our diets. One paper compared the reduction of greenhouse gases through halving food waste to the reduction achieved by switching to a plant-based diet. The difference? 5% vs 80%.

So, given that people’s readiness to listen to exhortation is limited, perhaps we should focus on the kind that could make the biggest difference.

Some global calculations mistakenly assume that any reduction in environmental impacts caused by shrinking food waste is a net saving. It’s not.

In poorer nations, where much food is lost through slow and unreliable transport and spoiling by high temperatures, pests or bruising, the solutions - such as more and better roads, more refrigeration and more packaging - can reverse some or all of the environmental savings.

None of this is to say we should stop trying to reduce food waste. But we should be aware of the limitations, and recognise that in countries like the UK there is not much further it can go. So why do so many people put this issue at the top of their list? My guess:

Because it’s safe. Reducing food waste, like reducing litter, is uncontroversial. There’s no need for major political or economic change, no need to confront power, little chance of getting into a row with angry conservatives and legacy industries.

Especially when the focus is on consumer waste, it individuates the structural problems with the foodchain, shifting the focus from corporate and industrial malfeasance to individual fecklessness. Power loves that.

But the real, massive problems with the foodchain, that both threaten its own resilience and threaten the living planet, are systemic and institutional. They cannot be addressed without confronting power and pushing for systemic change.

Sources: i. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste. fao.org/platform-food-…

ii. Melanie Saltzman, Christopher Livesay and Mark Bittman, 2019. Is France’s Groundbreaking Food-Waste Law Working? PBS Newshour, Pulitzer Centre, 1 September 2019. pulitzercenter.org/stories/france…

iii. Yanne Goossens, Alina Wegner and Thomas Schmidt, 2019. Sustainability Assessment of Food Waste Prevention Measures: Review of Existing Evaluation Practices. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Volume 3. doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.…

iv. Jenny Gustavsson et al., 2011. Global Food Losses and Food Waste- Extent, Causes and Prevention. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). fao.org/3/i2697e/i2697…

v. Brian Lipinski et al., 2017. SDG Target 12.3 on Food Loss and Waste: 2017 Progress Report. World Resources Institute - Champions 12.3. champions123.org/sites/default/…

vi. Waste & Resources Action Programme, 2008. The food we waste. wrap.s3.amazonaws.com/the-food-we-wa…

vii. Walter Willett et al., 2019. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, volume 393, issue 10170, pp. 447-492. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-…

viii. UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2015. Food wastage footprint & Climate Change.
fao.org/3/bb144e/bb144…

ix. Purabi R Ghosh, et al., 2015. An Overview of Food Loss and Waste: why does it Matter? COSMOS, volume 11, issue 1, pp. 89-103. doi.org/10.1142/S02196…