The IDAFLW 2023 arrives against the backdrop of significant global challenges. With climate change, conflicts, economic slowdowns, and soaring food prices heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Ukraine war, the world faces unprecedented strains.
In this context, the conference takes on added importance, providing a crucial platform for addressing and finding solutions to these pressing issues.
According to stopfoodlosswaste.org, The 2023 report of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World highlights that up to 783 million people across the globe faced hunger in 2022, while more than 3.1 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021. While hunger and food security continue, an estimated 13 percent of the world’s food is lost in the supply chain from post-harvest prior to the retail stage of the supply chain; a further 17 percent of food is wasted in households, food services and in retail.
Reducing food loss and waste can play a key role in the transformation of agrifood systems by increasing the availability of food, contributing to food security, healthy diets, and building resilience. Food loss and food waste reduction also serves as a key climate strategy by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). It can therefore help countries and businesses to raise climate ambition, while conserving and protecting our ecosystems and natural resources upon which the future of food depends.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – specifically SDG 12, Target 12.3 – calls for halving per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains. Target 16 of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) among other issues, also calls for “halving global food waste by 2030”. We need to urgently accelerate the pace of actions to reduce food loss and waste, and transform agrifood systems, so as to meet the SDG 12.3 Target, and that set by the GBF – with tangible benefits for people and the planet.
