Paris:

Halving food waste could cut climate-warming emissions and end undernourishment for 153 million people globally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN’s food agency said in a joint report Tuesday. 

Around a third of food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization — resulting in useless emissions and less available food for those who need it. 

By 2033, the number of calories lost and wasted between produce leaving farms and reaching shops and households could be more than twice the number of calories currently consumed in low-income countries in a year, the report warned. 

Cutting in two the amount of food lost and wasted along the journey from farm to fork “has the potential to reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by four per cent and the number of undernourished people by 153 million by the year 2030,” according to the report.

“This target is a highly ambitious upper bound and would require substantial changes by both consumers and producer side,” they added. 

Agriculture, forestry and other land use account for around one-fifth of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. 

UN nations have committed to cutting per capita food waste by 50 percent by 2030 as part of sustainable development goals but there is no global target for reducing food loss along the production supply chain.

Between 2021 and 2023, fruit and vegetables accounted for more than half of the lost and wasted food given their extremely perishable nature and relatively short shelf life, according to the report. 

Cereals followed, accounting for over a quarter of lost and wasted food.  

The FAO estimates that approximately 600 million people will be facing hunger in 2030.

“Measures to reduce food loss and waste could significantly increase food intake worldwide as more food becomes available and prices fall, ensuring greater access to food for low-income populations,” the report said. 

Halving food loss and waste by 2030 could result in increased food intake by 10 per cent for low-income countries, six per cent in lower middle-income nations and four per cent in upper middle-income ones, it added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

United Nations, US:

The United Nations appealed Friday for Sudan’s battling factions to allow delivery of humanitarian relief to fend off looming “catastrophic” hunger.

Some five million Sudanese could face calamitous food insecurity in coming months as a nearly yearlong war between rival generals continues to tear the country apart, according to a UN document seen Friday by AFP.

The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has since April last year killed tens of thousands, destroyed infrastructure and crippled the economy.

It has also triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and acute food shortages, with the country teetering on the brink of famine.

Noting that some 18 million Sudanese are already facing acute food insecurity — a record during harvest season — UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned in a letter to the Security Council that “almost 5 million people could slip into catastrophic food insecurity in some parts of the country in the coming months.”

He noted that nearly 730,000 Sudanese children — including more than 240,000 in Darfur — are thought to suffer from “severe” malnutrition.

“Aid organizations require safe, rapid, sustained and unimpeded access — including across conflict lines within Sudan,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“A massive mobilization of resources from the international community is also critical,” he added.

The UN’s World Food Programme has warned that the war risks “triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

Jill Lawler, the emergency chief in Sudan for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said there were enough aid stocks in Port Sudan, but the problem was getting the aid from there to the people in need.

Lawler said she last week had led the first UN mission to reach Khartoum state since war erupted 11 months ago.

They had seen first-hand that “the scale and magnitude of needs for children across the country are simply staggering,” she told reporters in Geneva via video link from New York.

The war “is pushing the country towards a famine” with hunger “the number one concern people expressed.”

‘Moment of truth’

Mandeep O’Brien, UNICEF representative in Sudan, said 14 million children needed humanitarian aid and four million were displaced.

There was only a “small window left to prevent mass loss of children’s lives and future,” she warned on X, formerly Twitter.

World Health Organization regional director Hanan Balkhy, who recently returned from a trip to Sudan, underlined the acute needs in Darfur, saying most health facilities were looted, damaged or destroyed.

Griffiths, the UN aid chief, lamented that fighting continued to rage during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan despite a Security Council resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities.

“This is a moment of truth,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The parties must silence the guns, protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access.”

The UN on Friday called for more financial support for aid operations in Sudan.

UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told reporters in Geneva that the world body had appealed for $2.7 billion to provide aid this year, but had received just five percent of that amount so far.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)