The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report released last Thursday

Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources is the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective, looking specifically at its consequences for the climate, water and land use, and biodiversity.

Among its key findings: Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River  and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere.

In addition to its environmental impacts, the direct economic consequences to producers of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually, FAO’s report estimates.

“We all – farmers and fishers; food processers and supermarkets; local and national governments; individual consumers – must make changes at every link of the human food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place, and re-use or recycle it when we can’t,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

“In addition the environmental imperative, there is a moral one: We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste, when 870 million people go hungry every day, “ he added.

As a companion to its new study, FAO has also published “tool-kit” that contains recommendations on how food loss and waste can be reduced at every stage of the food chain.

The tool-kit profiles a number of projects around the world that show how national and local governments, farmers, businesses, and individual consumers can take steps to tackle the problem.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, said:”UNEP and FAO have identified food waste and loss-food wastage-as a major opportunity for economies everywhere to assist in a transition towards a low carbon, resource efficient and inclusive Green Economy.

Today’s excellent report by the FAO underlines the multiple benefits that can be realized- in many cases through simple and thoughtful measures by for example households, retailers, restaurants, schools and businesses-that can contribute to environmental sustainability, economic improvements, food security and the realization of the UN Secretary General’s Zero Hunger Challenge.