One tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture could easily be avoided in the future by putting an end to food loss and waste, scientists said on Thursday. The new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) provides food loss estimates at national and global level while also calculating the associated emissions. Each year, one third of global food production is lost after harvest or wasted in retail and households. “Currently, 1.3 billion tons of food per year are discarded,” explains Jürgen Kropp, co-author and deputy chair of Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities at PIK. While food losses occur mostly in developing countries due to less efficient agricultural infrastructures, food waste is mainly a problem in industrialised countries. And the amount of food wasted will increase dramatically if more countries adopt western food habits. “As many emerging economies like China or India are projected to rapidly increase their food waste as a consequence of changing lifestyle, increasing welfare and dietary habits towards a larger share of animal-based products, this could over proportionally increase greenhouse gas emissions associated with food waste – at the same time undermining efforts for an ambitious climate protection,” Kropp warns. According to the researchers, emissions from agriculture are expected to rise by up to 18 gigatons of CO2 equivalents by 2050. Over the same time, emissions linked to food waste could increase from currently 0.5 to 1.9-2.5 gigatons of CO2 equivalents per year, the study shows. “Thus, emissions related to discarded food are just the tip of the iceberg,“ explains co-author Prajal Pradhan. “However, it is quite astounding that up to 14 percent of overall agricultural emissions in 2050 could easily be avoided by a better management of food utilisation and distribution,” he added. The scientists found that over the last five decades food availability has rapidly increased while global average food demand per person has remained almost constant. Richer countries tend to consume more food than is healthy or simply waste it, they said. At the same time, hunger and malnutrition are still a problem in many developing countries because many people do not have access to food or because food loss occurs. “Avoiding food loss could pose a leverage to various challenges at once, reducing environmental impacts of agriculture, saving resources used in food production, and enhance local, regional, and global food security,” Kropp said. (ab)