Dr Gregory Cooper, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Food, discusses two current studies looking at overlooked hotspots for food waste in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Stop Food Waste Day on April 29th aims to raise awareness of food waste occurring at retail outlets, restaurants and homes. While research in this area has traditionally focused on high-income countries, the rural markets of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are often overlooked hotspots of food waste.
Two studies based at the Institute for Sustainable Food aim to redress this research imbalance. The ‘Indian Food Systems for Improved Nutrition’ (INFUSION) project recently conducted a series of surveys with vendors of perishable foods (e.g., fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs and fish) across more than 250 rural markets in Bihar: a largely agrarian state home to ~120 million people. Initial insights from these surveys suggest that, on average, fruit and vegetable vendors are unable to sell 11% and 9% of their respective stocks at the end of each market day, of which ~85% is discarded as waste (e.g., at formal disposal points, or fed to animals or simply thrown onto the road). With many involving 100+ vendors, these percentages can equate to hundreds of kilograms per day. With Government of India data estimating over 15,000 village markets in the state of Bihar alone, the potential scale of food waste represents a significant and under-recognised threat to rural food and nutrition security.
Future changes in temperature and rainfall threaten to further exacerbate food waste. The INFUSION team have been conducting group model building sessions with food traders, retailers and consumers in Odisha, to understand how the introduction of climate-sensitive interventions such as drainage, roofs and raised platforms, and cold storage facilities may help to guard against issues such as food waste. Described in their recent blog posts (#1, #2), the discussions uncovered various coping strategies practiced by rural market actors, from panic harvesting following extreme-weather alerts to selling door-to-door in nearby villages (often for prices lower than the market rate). Research over the coming months aims to develop a strategic roadmap of priority investments for the state government, particularly in infrastructures perceived by local market actors to strengthen their resilience against climate extremes.
Moving from theory to practice, the new ANH Academy funded ‘Solar Powered Interventions for Resilient and Equitable Food Systems’ (SPIRE-FS) project aims to co-design solar powered cold storages and dryers with rural women’s groups in Odisha. Such infrastructures have traditionally been developed by private organisations and governments with little consideration of local needs and demands – leading to poor technology uptake and the creation of ‘white elephants’. To counteract this, SPIRE-FS will assess the costs and benefits of placing rural stakeholders at the centre of the planning process. With the project starting in early April and set to run until early 2029, please do watch this space for further updates!