In developing economies, food lost occurs during the process of post production, harvest, transport, and preservation, which is caused by poor infrastructure. But in more developed economies, food waste emerges during marketing and consumption.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) declaration in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 emphasized the need to reduce food loss and waste towards a sustainable agriculture and food security.  One of the APEC food security roadmap until 2020 is to decrease food loss and waste by 10% compared with the level of 2011-2012 period. At APEC SOM 3 workshop in Vietnam’s Can Tho city on Saturday, participants agreed on the need to combine available public-private resources of APEC member economies to find proper ways to reduce food lost and waste. Some suggested policies to encourage investment and application of scientific and technological advances in the agricultural production chain.

Latin American countries will build a set of standards to help prevent food waste which reaches 127 million tons every year. 30% of the total 378 billion tons of food produced annually in Latin America is wasted, while 36 million people suffer hunger. Since 2015, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay have included this issue into the Parliament’s agenda. Chile has recently announced the establishment of an inter-sectoral committee to address food waste.

The World Bank says that food waste has hindered poverty reduction efforts and affected resources like soil, water, and energy.

Food output will increase 60% by 2050 compared with 2005 to feed the increasing world population. So efforts to reduce billion of tons wasted food will help improve global food security, ease environmental impacts, and give people access to a healthy, safe, and affordable diet.