A report conducted by the Chefs For Change Ghana Foundation (CFCG), a non profit food organisation has revealed that over 35% of food in Ghanatoday goes uneaten.
This does not only mean that Ghanaians are throwing out the equivalent of $8.9billion each year, but also the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of Ghana’s solid waste where it accounts for a large portion of methane emissions, according to the report.
It stated: “Currently over 45% of the food produced and imported in Ghana is wasted along the food supply chain. If left unchecked, Ghana will be losing over $50 billion dollars by 2018 and this will have effects on country’s economy. Food imports in Ghana keep increasing at a rate of 10% annually”.
The 2013 Ghana Food Wastage Report with a theme: ‘The Economic Impact of Food Wastage in Ghana’ which was released in Accra further revealed: “Reducing food losses by just 15 percent would be enough food to feed more than seven million Ghanaians every year at a time when one in six Ghanaians lack a secure supply of food to their tables”.
The author of the report who is also the Founder of CFCG, Elijah Amoo Addo added: “Increasing the efficiency of our food system is a triple bottom-line solution that requires collaborative efforts by businesses, government and consumers.
The motivation for the present study is to quantify in a comprehensive manner, for the first time, the annual economic impact of the food wasted in Ghana using the 2013 Ministry of Food and Agricultural progress report data and other related studies carried out globally”.
According to him, this was important given the current position of Ghana’s economy, our over dependence of food imports, the rapid growth of our catering, hospitality and shopping industry.
Given all the resources demanded for food production, it is critical to make sure that the least amount possible is needlessly squandered on its journey to our plates, Mr. Addo stated.
The report he said examined the economic impact and inefficiencies in Ghana‘s food system by identifying food losses at every level of the food supply chain.
Mr. Addo lamented: “The average Ghanaian consumer especially those in urban areas wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Asia, up 50 percent from Ghanaians in the 1970s,a time when we faced a food insecurity due to prolonged drought.
This means there was once a time when we wasted far less, and we can get back there again. Doing so will ultimately require a suite of coordinated solutions including supply-chain operation, enhanced market incentives, increased public awareness and adjustments in consumer behaviour.”
Ghana’s total fish requirement for the year 2013 was estimated to be 1,062,194 metric tonnes (mt), however only a total of 434,120.32mt was produced from all sources including marine, inland and aquaculture.
The production trend shows that total fish production in 2013 decreased by 5% compared to 2012, the report indicated.
Further analysis shows that total fish imports into Ghana for year 2013 was 150,700.61mt valued at US$135,118,500.77. Total fish availability therefore was 584,820.93 mt representing 55% self sufficiency of the country’s annual fish requirement in 2013.
This indicates that a margin of 45% of the country’s annual fish requirement could not be met. However 903.8mt of the total fish availability was wasted amounting to 1.4million dollars.
FACTS AND FIGURES ON FOOD WASTAGE IN GHANA
Ghana in 2013 imported over 45% food commodities amounting over $ 1.5billion to compliment local food production and demand.
Ghana’s major food staple which was known to be maize and cassava has been taken over by rice and chicken. Rice and chicken recipes is served in one out of every three occasions in Ghana.
The country in 2013 lost 8.9 billion dollars to both avoidable and unavoidable food wastage with the highest wastage occurring within the distribution and consumer level of our food supply chain.
With population increase , the report said Ghana would need to increase its food production by 100% to meet the demand of Ghanaians by 2018.
Food wastage has become a global phenomenon that demands urgent solutions globally. Ghana and the African continent can learn from work that is already under way in Europe.
Both the United Kingdom and the European Union have conducted research to better understand the causes of food wastage and identify potential solutions. In January 2012, the European Parliament adopted a resolution to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2020 and designated 2014 as the “European year against food waste.”
Since the early 1990’s there has been a rapid increase of foreign recipes within the country, now most Ghanaians prefer foreign recipes especially American, European and Mediterranean recipes.
This trend has increased Ghana’s annual importation of foreign food ingredients. This is evident with the springing up of food service operators and grocery shops across the country.
Mr Addo also observed there was the plain economic truth that the more food consumers waste, the more those in the food industry are able to sell.
SOLUTIONS
Overcoming these challenges as well as the other drivers of food waste discussed in the report, he said would require all hands on deck from the Ghanaian government to consumers and businesses.
It will also require raising the priority of reducing food waste to the significant level it merits. The time to act is now. In fact, a recent report by a consulting firm McKinsey ranks reducing food waste as one of the top three opportunities to improve resource productivity.
Key prospects for change agents include: Government and agencies should as a matter of urgency conduct a comprehensive study for food losses and wastage in the country’s food system and establish national goals for food waste reduction.
One key action will be to standardize and clarify the meaning of date labels on food so that consumers stop throwing out items due to misinterpretation. A waste reduction organization in the United Kingdom has estimated this type of clarification could prevent about 20 percent of wasted food in households, Mr Addo noted.
African Eye Report
