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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy

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  • Publication | 2011

Global food losses and food waste: Extent, causes and prevention

Global Food and Nutrition Security

The study highlights the losses occurring along the entire food chain, and makes assessments of their magnitude. Further, it identifies causes of food losses and possible ways of preventing them. The results of the study suggest that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. This inevitably also means that huge amounts of the resources used in food production are used in vain, and that the greenhouse gas emissions caused by production of food that gets lost or wasted are also missions in vain.