Driven to Waste: Summary: The Global Impact of Food Loss and Waste on Farms

In 2011 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that one-third of all global food production is wasted, contributing to massive levels of environmental degradation and perpetuating food insecurity. This marked the launch of a global effort to accurately quantify the amount of food lost and wasted at all stages of the supply chain in order to monitor the impacts of food waste and progress achieved in reducing it. These efforts were given extra importance by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3, which in 2015 set the target to halve per capita post- retail global food waste by 2030 and achieve a reduction in pre-retailer losses. There has never been a more important time to redouble our efforts to reduce food waste in light of heightened awareness of our food system’s impact on environmental health and global issues of food insecurity and undernutrition.