Data and Research to Improve the U.S. Food Availability System and Estimates of Food Loss A Workshop Summary (2015) / Chapter Skim
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5 Alternative Approaches for Estimating Food Loss: International and Domestic
5 Alternative Approaches for Estimating Food Loss: International and Domestic
Pages 93-118
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From page 93... ...
about a model for imputing food losses in food balance sheets, followed by a summary of the questions and answers that resulted. The fifth section is a summary of the presentation by Morvarid Bagherzadeh (OECD)
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From page 94... ...
The paper's first recommendation was to develop a global Food Loss and Waste Protocol, with the premise that "what gets measured gets managed." She stated it is very difficult to adequately manage food loss and food waste if there is no consistent way to measure them, referring to the earlier workshop session (see Chapter 2) about the challenges associated with measuring food availability, loss, and waste.
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From page 95... ...
WRI and WBCSD convened a multistakeholder process to develop the Greenhouse Gas Protocol,3 which she said is now seen as the standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions. Development of the Food Loss and Waste Protocol is drawing from the lessons learned during the development of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Robertson noted.
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From page 96... ...
But there will also be guidance on lower cost, less resource-intensive options for entities with fewer capabilities. Robertson said WRI is planning on a 2-year process to develop the Food Loss and Waste Protocol.
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From page 97... ...
The upstream group will focus on losses at harvest up to the point of processing, and the downstream group will focus on the processing point forward to consumption. The external review group will provide independent perspectives on the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, particularly feedback on the draft guidance.
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From page 98... ...
The hope, he said, is to be able to draw inferences from one representative country within a food chain to other countries that have similar food chains. STATEMENT OF KLAUS GRUNBERGER A MODEL FOR IMPUTING FOOD LOSSES IN FOOD BALANCE SHEETS Grünberger described an analytical effort to use existing data to impute food losses to countries and commodities for which FAO does not have data.
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From page 99... ...
For example, if a country reported loss ratios for 1990 and 2000, it was likely that the same value was reported in both years. He said the data had probably not been updated, so they could not be viewed as panel data.
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From page 100... ...
He pointed out that the mean loss ratio is about 8 percent, and the highest ratios are for fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts in Latin America and in sub-Saharan Africa, where loss ratios are quite high. Next, he used Table 5-3 to illustrate the difference between the loss ratios predicted by the model and those used in the balance sheets.
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From page 101... ...
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: KLAUS GRUNBERGER Jean Buzby asked for and received clarification that the United States is included in the analysis Grünberger presented. She stated that when she last looked at the commodities covered by FAO for the United States compared to those covered by the Food Availability Data System (FADS)
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From page 102... ...
FAO multiplies supply, the sum of production, net imports, and stock withdrawals, by a loss ratio. He said while there is nothing wrong with the methodology, FAO noticed the loss ratios have not changed for 30 years.
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From page 103... ...
She observed that it is hoped that the model, a stopgap approach to updating the loss ratios, and the experimental design approach will provide
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From page 104... ...
TABLE 5-2 Results: Predicted Loss Rates by Food Group and Subregion 104 Northern Africa Western Eastern Europe and Latin Industrialized and Asia and Food Group SSA Middle East America Countries Central Asia Pacific Total Cereals 7 4 8 3 4 5 5.20 Roots and tubers 7 6 11 6 4 6 6.80 Sugar crops 2 2 4 2 1 2 2.30 Pulses 5 3 5 2 2 3 3.50 Tree nuts 14 8 16 5 7 10 11.00 Oil crops 7 4 7 2 3 5 5.00 Vegetables 19 9 19 6 6 14 13.00 Fruits 15 7 15 5 5 11 11.00 Stimulants and spices 1 0 1 0 0 1 0.53 Milk 3 1 3 1 1 2 1.90 Eggs 3 1 4 1 1 2 2.10 Meat 11 6 15 4 3 8 8.60 Total 12 5.8 13 4.1 4.1 8.4 8.40 NOTES: SSA = sub-Saharan Africa. Averages of predicted loss rates for the year 2009.
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From page 105... ...
TABLE 5-3 How Results Would Change Losses in Food Balance Sheets Northern Africa Western Eastern Europe and Latin Industrialized and Asia and Food Group SSA Middle East America Countries Central Asia Pacific Total Cereals –1.5 –2.2 2.0 –2.0 –0.4 –2.2 –1.1 Roots and tubers –2.1 1.2 3.7 3.3 –0.7 0.3 0.6 Sugar crops –4.9 0.7 –1.0 1.1 1.1 –3.2 –2.1 Pulses 0.3 –1.5 1.4 –1.8 –2.3 0.9 –0.5 Tree nuts 5.9 2.5 1.0 –2.3 –0.4 –0.6 0.1 Oil crops 0.7 –0.6 4.3 –1.8 –0.8 1.2 0.6 Vegetables 9.5 0.2 9.8 –1.5 –0.3 3.1 2.5 Fruits 5.2 –1.7 4.5 –2.2 –2.2 0.9 0.8 Stimulants and spices –3.1 –2.7 –9.5 –2.0 –2.9 Milk –2.7 –3.2 –1.0 –0.7 –0.6 –3.0 –2.2 Eggs –6.8 –3.3 –0.3 –1.7 –1.1 –4.3 –3.5 Meat 1.1 –0.6 2.1 –0.4 –42.4 –1.4 Total 1.5 –1.0 4.5 –1.6 –1.0 0.1 0.5 NOTES: SSA = sub-Saharan Africa. Averages of predicted loss rates for the year 2009.
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From page 106... ...
Robertson asked about efforts to harmonize loss ratios across different entities. She said that from her perspective, it seems there would be value in having a standard database on loss ratios, and she considered how the Food Loss and Waste Protocol might give users guidance on these ratios.
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From page 107... ...
The third phase will be to try to draw policy lessons from incentives and disincentives to reduce food waste that apply to the processing and retail industries. Bagherzadeh went on to say that analysts at OECD have observed that two sets of policy objectives relate to food waste: one related to food security, or optimizing food availability, and the second related to the state of the environment, which includes minimizing waste management needs.
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From page 108... ...
; and curbside collection with separation of food waste in Korea,9 which has very good estimates of household food waste but no data from urban areas. Bagherzadeh pointed to the report Global Food Losses and Food Waste (Gustavsson et al., 2011)
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From page 109... ...
These results contributed to the conclusion by OECD analysts that households are not necessarily the main contributors to food waste; instead, lack of information and knowledge about the other sources of waste leads to the view that households are the main source. She observed that the OECD study has found that measurements of food waste available in different countries are different, depending on the country's objectives.
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From page 110... ...
Bagherzadeh referred the audience to three OECD reports: • Food Waste Along the Food Chain (in press) • Food Losses and Food Waste in China: A First Estimate (Liu, 2014)
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From page 111... ...
STATEMENT OF SHELLY SCHNEIDER EPA METHODS: CURRENT AND FOOD AVAILABILITY-BASED METHODS Schneider's presentation described the work done by Franklin Associates for EPA. She started out by introducing a series of reports and data produced by EPA titled Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
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From page 112... ...
Schneider explained that Franklin Associates started looking into using the ERS LAFA data to estimate food waste for MSW in 2012. They calculated food losses in pounds per capita per year for the following categories and subproducts: dairy (27 products)
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From page 113... ...
For example, the LAFA consumer category includes food away from home, while in the sample-based approach, food losses away from home at restaurants and institutions are included in the commercial sector. To prepare an estimate of total food loss to the solid waste system based on the LAFA data, three additional items need to be estimated and subtracted out for the number to be as comparable as possible to the estimate based on the sample-based methodology: food donations, food used for animal feed, and food for industrial use.
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Keeping the assumptions in mind might help illuminate reasons for differences and guide efforts needed to fill data gaps. She asked Schneider to clarify one of the assumptions being made when the LAFA data are used to estimate the amount of municipal solid waste.
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From page 115... ...
She noted that this is another piece of the food supply chain with issues about accounting and measurement. She went on to say that Germany has used anaerobic digestion for a long time, and in the past most of the residual material went to landfills.
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From page 116... ...
Quoting from Robertson's talk, she noted "what gets measured gets managed." Without measures, decisions cannot be made about whether something is reasonable or not. There could be good reasons for all the losses in the system, but the purpose of the workshop, she said, is not to evaluate these reasons but to help determine how to develop a full accounting and how to measure food loss and waste to support policy decisions in the future.
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From page 117... ...
Schwab described a food recovery challenge at EPA, when businesses and industry were asked to provide information on what had been sourcereduced, what had been donated, and what had been sent for animal feed. She said they can do some accounting, but results are not generalizable to the nation.
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From page 118... ...
Robertson said that as part of the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, the collaborators want to define "food," which she said will lead to some points Bagherzadeh raised about edible versus inedible food and avoidable waste versus unavoidable waste. She said the European Parliament has a definition of food, which comes in a regulation on food safety.19 As she quoted, the definition states "food means any substance or product whether processed, partially processed, or unprocessed, intended to be or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans." The next sentence states "food includes drink, chewing gum, and any substance including water intentionally incorporated into the food during its manufacture, preparation, or treatment." She noted that this definition is based on what is ingested, or planned to be ingested, which excludes such items as eggshells, meat bones, and pineapple skins.
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