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A recent United Nations report reveals that the food the world wastes produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the US.

Every year about a third of all food for human consumption, around 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted, along with all the energy, water and chemicals needed to produce it and dispose of it.

Almost 30% of the world’s farmland, and a volume of water equivalent to the annual discharge of the River Volga, are in effect being used in vain.

In its report, released this week, entitled The Food Wastage Footprint, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that the carbon footprint of wasted food was equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

If it were a country, it would be the world’s third biggest emitter after China and the United States, suggesting that more efficient food use could contribute substantially to global efforts to cut greenhouse gases to limit global warming.

The food the world wastes produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the US

The food the world wastes produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the US

In the industrialized world, much of the waste comes from consumers buying too much and throwing away what they do not eat. In developing countries, it is mainly the result of inefficient farming and a lack of proper storage facilities.

“Food wastage reduction would not only avoid pressure on scarce natural resources but also decrease the need to raise food production by 60% in order to meet the 2050 population demand,” the FAO said.

The report suggested improving communication between producers and consumers to manage the supply chain more efficiently, as well as investing more in harvesting, cooling and packaging methods.

It also said consumers in the developed world should be encouraged to serve smaller portions and make more use of leftovers. Businesses should give surplus food to charities and develop alternatives to dumping organic waste in landfill.

The FAO estimated the cost of the wasted food, excluding fish and seafood, at about $750 billion a year, based on producer prices.

The wasted food consumes about 250 cubic km of water and takes up about 1.4  billion hectares – much of it diverse natural habitat that has been cleared to make it arable.

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According to the UN’ food agency, around 1.3 billion tonnes of food, or one third of what is produced for human consumption, gets lost or wasted every year.

Pope Francis denounced this week what he called a “culture of waste” in an increasingly consumerist world and said throwing away good food was like stealing from poor people.

“Our grandparents used to make a point of not throwing away leftover food. Consumerism has made us accustomed to wasting food daily and we are unable to see its real value,” Pope Francis said at his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry,” he said. Since taking office in March, Pope Francis has said he wants the 1.2-billion-strong Roman Catholic Church to defend the poor and to practice greater austerity itself.

He has also made several calls for global financial reform.

Pope Francis denounces a "culture of waste" in an increasingly consumerist world

Pope Francis denounces a “culture of waste” in an increasingly consumerist world

In the industrialized world the majority of waste is by consumers, often because they buy too much and have to throw away what they do not manage to eat.

A UN-backed study released on Wednesday said simple measures such as better storage and reducing over-sized portions would sharply reduce the vast amount of food going to waste.

In US restaurants, diners wasted 9% of the meals they bought, partly because of a trend to increase the size of everything from cheeseburgers to soft drinks, said the report by the World Resources Institute and the UN Environment Programme.

Pope Francis said the “culture of waste” was especially deplorable given the prevalence of hunger in the world. The UN says hunger affects some 870 million people, while 2 billion suffer from at least one nutritional deficiency.

The Argentinean-born pontiff warned that too much focus on money and materialism meant financial market dips were viewed as tragedies while human suffering had become normal and ignored.

“In this way people are discarded as if they were garbage,” Pope Francis said.

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