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Research article2020Peer reviewedOpen access

The role of reducing food waste for resilient food systems

Bajzelj, Bojana; Quested, Thomas E; Röös, Elin; Swannell, Richard PJ

Abstract

Food waste undermines long-term resilience of the global food system by aggravating ecosystem damage. The global community must therefore work to reduce the amount of food that gets wasted. However, we should be mindful of some potential conflicts between food waste reduction and food system resilience. Over-production and over-supply are a contributing cause of waste, yet they also provide resilience in the form of redundancy. In this paper, we examine individual interventions designed to minimise food waste by scoring their impact on different aspects of resilience. We find that there are strong synergistic elements and interventions that support short- and long-term resilience, such as improved storage, which reduces the need to provide a constant flow of ‘surplus food’ and replaces it with a stock of ‘spare’ food. Some interventions carry a risk of trade-offs due to possible losses of redundancy, and investment lock-in that may reduce the ability of farmers to adapt by changing what and where they farm. Trade-offs do not mean that those interventions should not be pursuit, but they should be recognised so that can be adequately addressed with complimentary actions. This review underlines the necessity of food-systems thinking and joined-up policy.

Keywords

Food waste; Resilience; Food sustainability; Interventions; Food policy

Published in

Ecosystem Services
2020, Volume: 45, article number: 101140

      SLU Authors

      • Associated SLU-program

      Food Waste

      Sustainable Development Goals

      End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
      Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Food Science

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101140

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/107905