| CCAFS: CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security

#6: Reduce loss and waste in food systems, targeting infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change proposes the following evidence-based actions to achieve food security in the face of climate change. By taking these steps we can deliver long-term benefits to communities in all countries.

Recommendation 6:

In all sustainable agriculture development programmes, include research and investment components focusing on reducing waste, from production to consumption, by improving harvest and postharvest management and food storage and transport.
Develop integrated policies and programmes that reduce waste in food supply chains, such as economic innovation to enable low-income producers to store food during periods of excess supply and obligations for distributors to separate and reduce food waste.
Promote dialogue and convene working partnerships across food supply chains to ensure that interventions to reduce waste are effective and efficient (for example, redirecting food waste to other purposes), and do not create perverse incentives.

More recommendations

#1: Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies

#2: Significantly raise the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade

#3: Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental impacts of agriculture

#4: Develop specific programmes and policies to assist populations and sectors that are most vulnerable to climate changes and food insecurity

#5: Reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating patterns worldwide

#6: Reduce loss and waste in food systems, targeting infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits

#7: Create comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions

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