Independiente Diálogo
Enfoque geográfico:
Australia, Canadá, Sin fronteras
Main findings
This Dialogue brought together a variety of stakeholders from all over the world. This means that the findings are drawn from a number of example contexts, though participants agreed that food loss is a complex issue across all regions. The main findings from this Dialogue included: - In order to address food loss, there must be high levels of awareness of this problem and high levels of good data. Some participants felt that awareness of food loss is not as deep or widespread as is needed to address these issues. There needs to be good collection of robust data in order to better understand t
... Leer máshe relevant behavioral aspects of food production and consumption leading to food loss. Raising levels of awareness and collection of baseline data would also create an opportunity to more easily engage with policy-makers on these issues. - Food loss happens across many types of crops and livestock. Interventions should not focus exclusively on fruits and vegetables, but should acknowledge that food loss affects all value chains, including those of grains that provide major caloric nutrition for many people in developing nations. Food that is left unproduced is another type of food loss, for example livestock that does not reach maturity and cannot be slaughtered. - Quality is an important aspect of food loss. Smallholders are producers and consumers of food, and quality should be considered equally to quantity when measuring food loss, as this issue impacts the nutritional value of food consumed in some communities. Farmers are often not paid in relation to the quality of their food, so it will take innovative solutions that assign responsibility for looking after quality in the value chain and reducing this type of food loss. - Addressing food loss through systems-thinking would also allow the world to address other hidden costs of food production and loss across the value chain. Solutions will need to address the way in which COVID-19 has impacted food production and value chains, as well as ongoing food insecurity, lack of access to markets, and the gendered impacts of food systems. - The impacts of COVID19 are affecting food loss in several ways. While there have been limitations to transport and access to markets, shorter value chains and decentralisation have occurred as a resilience response to the pandemic. In some cases, these shorter value chains have provided many benefits to local communities and may be reducing food loss. However, shorter value chains may also result in a loss of product value as compared to longer value chains. These trade-offs must be better understood in order to determine whether shorter value chains as a resilience response should be maintained in some contexts. - There is an opportunity to translate a large body of research from developed countries into technologies that will be relevant to new contexts and adopted by new users, including smallholders across other regions. How do we better share information and resources to facilitate this? The best solutions will be those that are tangible and whose value can be demonstrated, in order to encourage adoption by smallholders and facilitate adaption to new contexts. - The role of government in addressing food loss issues must start at the problem definition stage of innovation. This will create more buy-in between different levels of government that must work together to address food loss across multiple stages of value chains. Participation in innovation from all types of stakeholders early on, including industry and research, will be needed to translate data and technology into practical solutions that will work within local policy contexts. Leer menos
Línea(s) de Acción: 1, 2, 4, 5
Palabras clave: Data & Evidence, Environment and Climate, Finance, Governance, Innovation, Policy, Trade-offs, Women & Youth Empowerment