Don’t waste food

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after the United States and China. In fact, unfortunately, 30 percent of the food we produce is wasted, or about 1.8 billion tons per year. If, as humanity, we stopped wasting food altogether, we would eliminate about 8 percent to 9 percent of our total emissions (FAO, 2011). Thus, intervening on food waste and food loss-that is, food discarded by suppliers or consumers and food “lost” during the early stages of production (harvesting, storage, and transportation)-would evidently enable climate change mitigation.