Global food wastage ranks as third top GHG emitter after USA and China
"ROM FAO INTERNAL DOCUMENT Food Wastage Footprint sent to FML by Nadia Scialabba at FAO:“The direct economic cost of wastage of agricultural food products (excluding fish and seafood), based on producer prices only, is about USD 750 billion, equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland. “ P3 P3"Without accounting for GHG emissions from land use change, the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 Gtonnes of CO2 equivalent. As such, food wastage ranks as the third top GHG emitter after USA and China. Globally, the blue water footprint of food wastage – the consumption of surface and groundwater resources – is about 250 km3, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva. Finally, produced but uneaten food occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land, representing close to 30 percent of the world’s agricultural land area. While it is difficult to estimate its impact on biodiversity at global level, food wastage unduly compounds the negative impact that monocropping and agriculture expansion into wild areas have on loss of biodiversity, including mammals, birds, fish and amphibians.The loss of land, water, and biodiversity, as well as the negative impacts of climate change represent huge costs to society that are yet to be quantified. The direct economic cost of wastage of agricultural food products (excluding fish and seafood), based on producer prices only, is about USD 750 billion, equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland."Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on natural resources," FAO, 2013. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdf