UN urges food wastage crackdown in China

China should put in place concrete policies to encourage the public to stop wasting food, as its agricultural sector faces mounting challenges amid climate change, a UN food agency official says.

Vincent Martin, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations representative in China, said the country should encourage individuals and families to take part in reducing food wastage, with authorities estimating between 40 and 50 billion kilograms of food are wasted in the consumption process each year.

"If you reduce food waste, you can also reduce the impact of climate change. But not everybody understands that. So you need to educate people. This will take many different campaigns," he said at an event to mark World Food Day in Nanjing on Sunday.

Martin noted that more than one-third of food produced worldwide was lost or wasted, and that global food wastage emissions were almost equal to global road transport emission.

"If food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd largest emitting one in the world. Food loss and waste is running a warning bell for food and nutrition security," he said.

He added that addressing climate change impacts was at the heart of FAO's work in China, and that it was committed to promoting climate-smart and sustainable agriculture by 2030.

However, Martin also noted that there could also be positive impacts of the climate change on the country's crop structure, as the temperatures in the Northwestern province, a major commodity grain base in China, is set to rise, allowing the area to cultivate more crops like rice.

However, as country with such a large size and diversity of climate, it is important for China to take specific measures to ensure the impacts of the climate change is monitored and countered, he said.

In a 2013 interview, Ren Zhengxiao, head of the State Administration of Grain, said 35 million tons of grain are lost every year during transportation, storage and processing.

Poor storage facilities, which resulted in deterioration and loss from scavengers, resulted in the loss of 20 million tons of food, while poor transportation methods - such as horse drawn carriages and tricycles - and the inadequate packaging used by many farmers resulted in the loss of about 7.5 million tons of grain.