Two Issues Tied Together- Food Waste and Food Insecurity

Did you know that 30-40 percent of the United States food supply goes to waste every year? According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service, this percentage corresponds to approximately 133 billion pounds of food worth roughly $161 billion. On top of this, food waste is the leading category of materials that end up in landfills, and not only could this waste feed millions of people but it also causes great harm to the environment.

Food waste is not only a humanitarian concern but also an environmental one. When looking at food waste from an implicit standpoint, wasting food is also wasting the energy required to grow, harvest, transport, and package this food. While this may be difficult to conceptualize on an individual scale, it is important to remember that we are talking about the collective loss of energy from 133 billion pounds of food that goes to waste. Additionally, food waste that rots in landfills creates a significant amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, “The resources needed to produce the food that becomes lost or wasted has a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billion tons of CO2.” On the global scale, the carbon footprint as a result of food waste would make up the 3rd largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, only behind the emissions of China and the United States.

Recovering about half of the food being wasted in the US could feed every hungry citizen 3 meals a day, every day. Therefore, we must start taking steps to waste less food. This task will require participation from federal, state, and local governments as well as environmental organizations, communities, and corporate institutions. On the federal scale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signed a joint agency formal agreement under the Winning on Reducing Food Waste Initiative. This agreement will strive to improve communication and coordination across federal agencies in educating people on the importance of minimizing food waste. Additionally, the USDA, EPA, and FDA issued a Federal Integrancy Strategy which outlines 6 areas the agencies will focus their efforts in curbing food waste. You can learn more by checking out the links below.

Sources:

https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste

https://moveforhunger.org/the-environmental-impact-of-food-waste

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2022/01/24/food-waste-and-its-links-greenhouse-gases-and-climate-change#:~:text=EPA%20estimated%20that%20each%20year,42%20coal%2Dfired%20power%20plants.