EU: Counting the Cost of Food Waste (EUC Report)

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a farmer. I must admit to being on the committee, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her good work in this area, both in the run-up to our report and subsequent to it. I want to examine this subject from the point of view of one of the world’s biggest problems: how are we going to feed the 9.5 billion people who will inhabit the planet by 2050? How are we going to feed that number when more and more people are eating meat, which consumes up to seven times more of our planet’s resources than if we were eating bread or rice? How are we going to feed that number when our climate is changing and our water supplies are reducing?

Of course, although this is off the subject, the first thing to do is to have freely available family planning in every village on the planet so that women can be free to manage their own fertility. Turning to the problem of food, though, it is a pity that the focus of most scientists, politicians and of course farmers is just about producing more and more of it. I am glad to say that in the scientific world has been a slight change recently, in that scientists are now looking more seriously at the question of yields in terms of nutrition per hectare rather than simply yields per hectare, because there is a big difference. We will never solve the problem of sustainably feeding the world unless we also start tackling it from the demand side, and undoubtedly the most glaring aspect of the demand side is that black hole known as food waste.

We have seen some pretty frightening statistics in our study of this matter, and we have already heard some in today’s debate. I shall highlight two. The Institute of Mechanical Engineers stated that as much as half the food produced in the world never reaches the human stomach, which is as much as 2 billion tonnes of food per annum going to waste. That could be the equivalent of £5 billion per annum being consigned to the tip—bad news indeed for the world economy.

Food waste is also disastrous for climate change. This is my second statistic: in the USA, 300 million barrels of oil per annum are used to produce food that is then thrown away. A barrel of oil is roughly 159 litres, which means that 47.6 billion litres per annum are burnt away into our atmosphere to produce food that is then thrown away. That is just in the United States and, as we know, consumer waste is undoubtedly a problem for the whole western world.

It should be noted, though, that in relation to the western world we in the UK are very much ahead of the curve, and we can be proud of that. WRAP reckons that the 15% reduction in food waste between 2007 and 2012 saved every UK household approximately £130 per annum. My message to Defra is that if you envisage a further drop in WRAP’s budget, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. Do not go there. WRAP says that over the last five years every £1 spent by the Government through WRAP has saved £500 in household waste. Think of the savings from that to local authority refuse disposal services alone.

This agenda is the very model of a public-private partnership that could save UK millions, if not billions, of pounds, and it is vital that it does not lose momentum. We were told during our report that the anti-smoking campaign was a 50-year journey, and although we must try to make this one a little faster, there is no doubt that public perceptions and awareness take time to change. But keeping up momentum is absolutely the key, and WRAP needs all the support and the money that it can get.

I know that this is an EU committee and this is an EU debate, but as I said at the beginning, this is a worldwide problem so I will direct my final thoughts to the developing world. Here, consumer waste is one-tenth of that of the developed world. They cannot afford to waste any food at all once it is in the home but post-harvest losses, both on the farm and during transport to market, can amount to 30% to 50%, depending on the crop involved. These extensive losses are mostly the result of lack of money for investment in proper storage facilities—rodents, bugs and bacteria abound. There is also no cold chain to market, although the Institution of Mechanical Engineers is looking at cheap ways of addressing that. The roads are rough, resulting in damaged and wasted fruit and veg on the way to market, and while trekking your animals to market may seem the cheapest way to get them there, it appears that weight losses of up to 30% frequently occur, which makes it a more expensive option.

A lot of the problem is knowledge, but the lack of any financial infrastructure also makes it impossible to invest to save. Equally, if you cannot read, it would be too dangerous to use chemicals to prevent the bugs attacking your stored maize. The alternative to having a large enough store which is sealed to keep out air is costly and beyond a smallholder’s reach. However, with investment and research—a lot of which comes from the UK and Europe—breakthroughs are being made. Mobile phones now enable farmers in remote areas to sell their crops directly to markets hundreds of miles away, before they rot from multiple handlings. Large plastic bags which can take a tonne or more and which can be airtight sealed are a new way of preventing decay at a reasonable price. Even reverting from maize to old fashioned crops like finger millet, whose natural husks protect the grain, has proved beneficial for local nutrition. For further details I would recommend our all-party parliamentary group’s recent booklet called Missing Food which I can provide for any interested Peer.

Aid and investment are enabling sub-Saharan African farmers, who often represent 85% of their country’s population, to stand on their own feet. The World Bank says that in terms of alleviation of poverty, a 1% increase in agricultural GDP is worth five or six times more than a 1% rise in non-agricultural GDP. This is an important agenda and post-harvest losses are a crucial part of that agenda, so DfID must continue to do all it can to help.