About 30 percent or 1.3 billion tons of food produced in the world every year get lost or wasted according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization FAO.
FAO said that the amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crop.
Based on the report, the problem in the developing world was mainly food losses like crop failures and poor infrastructure while in industrialized countries, it is more about retailers and consumers discarding edible foodstuffs into the trash bins.
It is more effective to reduce food losses than increase food production in order to feed a growing world population, according to FAO.
Around 925 million people around the world suffer from hunger. In Europe and North America consumers wasted between 95 and 115 kilograms (209 and 253 pounds) of food every year.
Consumers in rich countries are generally encouraged to buy more food than they need, it said in the report. Giving as an example, is the oversize ready-to-eat meals produced by the food industry and fixed-price buffets in restaurants.
The data was contained in a report commissioned by FAO from the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology for “Save Food!” a conference to be held in Germany later this month.
