Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 7/3/17

The widely cited statistics regarding the amount of food that is available for human consumption — and how much of that is never eaten — use differing methodologies and reach different statistical conclusions, cannot be compared with one another, and ultimately overstate the problem of food waste. This, according to new research by agricultural economists at the University of Minnesota, Colby College and California Polytechnic State University—San Luis Obispo. The research was published in an article titled, “On the Measurement of Food Waste,” in June in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. The authors make the point that different studies measure different things; some include parts of a food product, like uneaten carrot tops, as waste although it typically is not considered human food. “By misdirecting and misallocating some of the resources that are currently put into food waste reduction efforts, this overstatement of the problem could have severe consequences for public policy,” the authors write in their abstract. The article proposes a “consistent and practical” approach that better measures food waste and identifies the “interdependencies between potential policy levers.”

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