IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reseco/v15y2023p41-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Food Losses in Agrifood Systems: What We Know

Author

Listed:
  • Luciana Delgado

    (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA)

  • Monica Schuster

    (Division of Bioeconomics, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)

  • Maximo Torero

    (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy)

Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations and the G20 put food loss and food waste on the global agenda. While progress has been made since then, the scale of the problem persists because food loss and food waste are measured together, not separately. The paucity of data also poses a challenge. This article reviews the measurements, causes, and determinants of food loss as well as the interventions to reduce it. The review finds that food loss is considered in isolation, even though it is one of the causes and results of how agrifood systems function. The review calls for improved microdata collection and standardized measurements to separate food loss from food waste. Such efforts would help integrate feedback loops and cascading effects across the value chain with agrifood systems to identify intervention hot spots, trade-offs, and synergies of interventions as well as the effects of food loss reduction on socioeconomic, environmental, and food security goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Luciana Delgado & Monica Schuster & Maximo Torero, 2023. "Food Losses in Agrifood Systems: What We Know," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 41-62, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:15:y:2023:p:41-62
    DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-072722-025159
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-072722-025159
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1146/annurev-resource-072722-025159?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    food loss; food waste; value chains; agrifood systems; food security; measurement; determinants; interventions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:reseco:v:15:y:2023:p:41-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.