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Food loss and waste is an issue that everyone wanted to solve. Thus, in the conduct of the National Dialogue on Food Loss and Waste, there is no area of divergence. The participants are respectful of each other’s views, and the discussions were purely rational.

The discussion topic of the Dialogue mainly focused on the issue of food loss and waste. Participants from the various stakeholder groups provided a great number of ideas during the discussions. Among the significant ideas include coming up with an economic definition of food loss and waste, establishing data, integrating the concept of food safety to the Zero Waste Act, extending advocacies, value-adding of commodities, improving postharvest handling, and developing metrics on food loss and waste. There is a basic definition of food loss and waste that is provided by the Food and Agriculture ... Read moreOrganization. According to the participants, it can be further supplemented with an economic definition of food loss and waste. This will resolve the dilemma on whether it will be more economical just to throw foods or there will be an economic benefit in redistributing foods. This will be highly applicable to the Zero Food Waste Act, and other initiatives involving food banks. Lack of data on food loss and waste is a major concern for all the stakeholders. Data collection on postharvest loss and food waste are very patchy and inadequate. The Philippine Statistics Authority can be requested to be involved in this initiative to include in their activities the data collection specific for food loss and waste. Subsequently, the stakeholders across the value chain must help identify the variables that must be gathered. One of the main components of the Zero Food Waste Act is the redistribution of edible food waste to the food insecure. This is a great initiative that must also consider the principles of food safety. The technical experts from the academe will be keen on working with the legislators to ensure that food safety will be incorporated in the draft bill. The RICEponsible campaign was an effective advocacy for reducing food loss and waste in the rice commodity. This program can serve as a blueprint to extend the advocacy to other commodities such as vegetables, fruits, livestock, and fish. Consumers shall also be educated to purchase food without having a bias on its physical quality/appearance. The government may lead this initiative in collaboration with other stakeholder groups. Value-adding of commodities is one of the strategies to extend the shelf life of commodities and increase their economic value. Making use of available technologies to value-add specific commodities will result in reduced food loss and waste. The academe in partnership with the private sector can lead this. The concept of a community-based food processing facility shall be further explored and amplified. Postharvest handling to reduce food loss and waste shall rely on postharvest technologies, storage facilities, and improved packaging to lessen food loss and waste. The government, private sector, and international organizations have expertise and resources to complement the proposed initiatives under this subject. Developing context-specific metrics in measuring how the Philippines is progressing towards the reduction of food loss and waste is also an important proceeding. The tool that will be developed must be useful to the policymakers, and program implementers. Read less

In the National Dialogue on Food Loss and Waste, the active participation of all stakeholders coming from the private sector, non-government organizations, international agencies, academe, and the government was highly appreciated. This aspect is significant in understanding and addressing the issue using a multisectoral approach. Each stakeholder group is eager to forge partnerships among themselves for the creation of programs that will address the issue of food loss and waste. The national government can facilitate the institutionalization of the intended partnerships among the stakeholder ... Read moregroups. All of the participants recognized the importance of their institutions, and the effectiveness of collaboration for the various initiatives that were discussed. The majority of the participants across all stakeholder groups expressed their current initiatives and future commitments in addressing the issue at hand. There must be a continuing discourse on these initiatives and commitments to really operationalize them in a participatory and collaborative manner for all stakeholder groups. The ideal future scenario is that there are collaborative programs being implemented by various groups of stakeholders which are institutionalized through formal agreements. Relevant to this, it was noted during the Dialogue that the Philippine House of Representatives has already approved the Substitute Bill for House Bills (HB) 2031, 2186, 2189, 3342, 3370, 3849, 3973, 4450, 4465, 4524, 4616, 4903, 5467, 5974, 6468, 6474 and 7709, and has transmitted to the Senate as HB 7956 or the Food Surplus Reduction Act. There is a proposed consensus in the Dialogue to reinforce data relevant to food loss and waste. With this, the data collection and database establishment shall be identified as the top priority activity. The data that will be collected and analyzed will be the prerequisite for all the policies and programs that will be developed intended for tackling the issue of food loss and waste in the country. Read less

The Dialogue focused on the Food Systems Summit Action Track #2 Shift to Sustainable Consumption Patterns specifically on the matter of food loss and waste. The concepts of food loss and waste based on the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) definition were conveyed to the participants. Food loss is the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by food suppliers in the chain, excluding retailers, food service and consumers. On the other hand, food waste refers to the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by r... Read moreetailers, food service providers and consumers. Overview of the extent of food loss and waste at the national level were presented. In the Philippines, substantial post-harvest losses of up to 50% were from initial harvesting, grading, packaging and transportation from field to storage and distribution. In terms of food waste, an estimate of 2,175 tons of food are wasted daily in Metro Manila. It was emphasized in the Dialogue that food loss and waste is an economic waste— every time food is wasted, all the money, packaging, manpower, and water are wasted too, all along the supply chain. There are three ways to address food loss and waste. These include prevention, donation, and composting. The Philippines has the Food Donation Act of 2009 through which the food surplus can be donated such as the community pantries. It was emphasized that a nation feeds its people, soils, and its animals. Commercialized technologies for reducing post-harvest loss developed by the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization were presented. The available commercialized technologies are low-cost, and are applicable to commodities such as cassava, rice, corn, soybean, cashew, and coffee. In addition, the effectiveness of post-harvest facilities particularly for rice production was also discussed. In 2008, the wasted rice in the Philippines was equivalent to 12.2% of the total rice imports which is equivalent to Php 7.27 billion or the consumption of nearly 2.5 million Filipinos in a year. One of the strategies applied to address rice wastage is thru information and awareness-raising campaigns. The result of this campaign was discussed by the Philippine Rice Research Institute. The initiatives in the Legislative Branch in addressing the issue of food loss and waste, specifically the Senate Bill No. 1242 An Act Providing for a System of Redistributing and Recycling Food Waste to Promote Food Security, was also reported in the Dialogue. Hunger is a social issue. Hunger can be addressed by sustainable consumption. Addressing food loss and waste can contribute to the alleviation of hunger. Read less