Land: The Hidden Unknown of Food Waste
Reducing food waste could alleviate a number of critical social and environmental issues in the UK, from food poverty to greenhouse gas emissions. To date, food waste has received attention across academia, industry, and policy, while internationally, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) act as a lever to increase awareness and drive reductions in food waste, Goal 12 in particular. Despite recent policy briefs highlighting the UK food waste situation at different stages of the food system, including primary production, manufacturing, retail, and households[1], food waste is addressed on a voluntary basis, with there being no legal obligations calling for an end to food waste. Instead, NGOs lead the charge in advocating for food waste measurement and reduction across the food system. For example, WRAP (previously the Waste Resource Action Programme) led the development and implementation of the Courtauld Commitment[2] which advocates for wider reporting on food waste. Yet one facet of food waste that remains overlooked is the inherent value of the land on which the food was produced.
To date, most efforts and initiatives to reduce food waste have largely focused on the retail, hospitality and household stages of the food supply chain[3]. This has historically been due to an accepted understanding that these stages represent the greatest sources of food waste. Whilst there has been a recent growth in attention placed on food waste occurring at the primary production stage of the chain (which can be thought of as the on-farm food waste occurring pre- or post-harvest but before leaving the farm gate) there still remains a lack of data to confidently estimate the volumes of on-farm food waste [4],[5].
A reduction of food waste is something that all actors in the supply chain should be working towards. Indeed, the reduction of food waste goes beyond the elimination of hunger, it represents equality across the food system and efficient use of resources, particularly natural resources. The amount of food wasted in the UK is estimated to be as much as 10.7 million tonnes every year[6]. WRAP reported that household food waste alone was associated with 18 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (co2 equivalent)[7]. In the academic and public debates about food waste, the volume of natural resources that have been used in the production of this ‘waste’ is often not mentioned. Whilst the food wasted is itself a considerable source of waste, the natural resources embedded in the food often represent the hidden ‘waste’. From the water used to irrigate the land, the biological inputs for fertilisation, to the land that has been used to produce crops, the natural resources are rarely highlighted in the food waste conversation.
Perhaps the most important natural resource used for food production, and the most relevant to the work of the LUNZ Hub, is the land it is grown on. Land is a valuable and limited natural resource, and that which is used to grow wasted food could be put to more productive use. Considering that it is estimated that as much as 10.7 million tonnes of food is wasted every year, what other ‘wastes’ does this represent? For the producers of this food, the agricultural inputs used in the food production can come at a significant cost. It is estimated that as much as 15.3% of food produced is lost before it leaves the farm gate [8].
Limited on-farm food waste data exists. Measuring on-farm food waste is a challenge due to the invasiveness of current measurement approaches, and many primary producers (farmers) are already operating at maximum capacity and have little additional resource to engage in extensive measurement activities that bring little direct economic returns. As it stands, there is no inherent benefit to measuring food waste for food producers. In fact, it can incur further labour and costs that are outside of the reasonable expectations of food producers. In some cases, this topic can be considered a taboo, whereby discussing on-farm food waste could have the potential to harm primary producers’ reputation. Thankfully this is becoming less so, perhaps due to the ongoing work to shed light on the drivers of food waste, many of which are out of the immediate control of primary producers, such as extreme weather or unfair purchasing behaviour from buyers.
Our confidence in knowing exactly how much food is wasted on farms is somewhat low. The most recent studies show that only 3% of data points come from direct on farm measurements, the majority of data (57%) comes from expert opinion and questionnaire surveys[9]. Yet this approach to measurements have been shown to underestimate the volume of on farm food waste[10],[11]. Nonetheless, the scale of on-farm food waste, the 15.3% of food lost before it leaves the farm gate, could have considerable implications for how agricultural land productivity is evaluated, especially if portions of food waste could be avoided through improved supply chain purchasing practices, or adaptions to cosmetic marketing standards. Especially given the limited availability of land, reducing food waste could substantially increase productivity and free up land for other uses.
In summary, the relationship between food waste and the land used for the production of wasted food warrants further discussion, particularly in understanding the potential implications of on-farm waste for agricultural land productivity and where the opportunities lie in tackling both food waste and land availability and use. Considering the ongoing debates around land use and food production strategies (such as the National Food Strategy[12]), the extent and implications of on-farm food waste forms an important part of this dialogue but the data availability of on-farm food waste is limiting.
The authors would like to acknowledge support for this post received from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), grant number EP/Y00597X/1.
[1] Bradshaw and Wentworth, ‘Food Waste’.
[2] ‘History of the Courtauld Commitment’.
[3] Sawyerr et al., ‘Understanding & Evaluating On-Farm Loss and Waste in the UK’.
[4] O’Connor et al., ‘A Critical Review of On-Farm Food Loss and Waste’.
[5] Hoehn et al., ‘A Critical Review on Food Loss and Waste Quantification Approaches’.
[6] WRAP, ‘UK Food Waste & Food Surplus – Key Facts’.
[7] WRAP, ‘Household Food And Drink Waste In The United Kingdom 2021/22’.
[8] Parfitt, Croker, and Brockhaus, ‘Global Food Loss and Waste in Primary Production’.
[9] Parfitt, Croker, and Brockhaus.
[10] Johnson et al., ‘Field Measurement in Vegetable Crops Indicates Need for Reevaluation of On-Farm Food Loss Estimates in North America’.
[11] Joensuu et al., ‘Developing the Collection of Statistical Food Waste Data on the Primary Production of Fruit and Vegetables’.
[12] Henry Dimbleby, ‘National Food Strategy: The Plan’.
Ursula Davis
University of Leicester
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