The Economic Assessment on Impacts of Reducing Food Loss and Waste for APEC Region
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Chou, Chien-Yu
Abstract
Current world population is expected to increase to 9.3 billion by 2050. Combined with income growth and urbanization in developing countries, the resulting changes in food consumption patterns will further intensify global food security concerns. Food supplies will need to increase by 70% in order to fulfill food demand in 2050. To wit, increasing food productivity is essential for ensuring global food security but increasing cycles of adverse weather conditions associated with climate change will bring limitations on land and water resources which will severely challenge on future food production capabilities. Due to these constraints, it may not be sufficient to simply increase food production. To sustainably achieve the goals of food security in the most efficient way, reducing food losses and waste is a promising method to improve future global food security. However, there has been little analysis or research on the potential impacts of food loss and waste and the impacts of reducing them. This study utilizes FAO estimates of loss and waste to analyze the economic impact of reducing food loss and waste in the APEC region. By using the GTAP model （Global Trade Analysis Project model） we examine three different scenarios. The first scenario determines the systemic impacts of reductions in producer losses reaching 10% for all APEC countries and commodities covered by FAO data. The second examines the outcomes of reductions in consumer waste by 50%. The last scenario examines the impact of simultaneous reductions in producer losses and consumer waste. The empirical results from the first scenario demonstrate that reducing food loss at the producer level across the supply chain has a positive impact on GDP, welfare, and household income in the APEC region. Additionally, market prices in each food commodity sector decline, output and private sector demand both increase, and food commodity exports from APEC increase. The second scenario suggests that reducing consumer-stage food waste by 50% in APEC leads to increasing household income. Reducing waste lowers actual demand thereby causing falling prices and decreased production but also makes the international market prices of food commodities decline and increases food commodity exports from the APEC region to rest of the world. Finally, the results of the third scenario also indicate that reducing production losses and consumer waste increases household net income for the APEC region and decreases the market price of each commodity to a higher degree than based on consumer waste reduction alone; additionally, APEC region food commodity export trade was simultaneously increased.
Subjects
Food losses
Food waste
Post-harvest losses
Computable General Equilibrium
Global Trade Analysis Project
Type
thesis