Communications
In the U.S., more than one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste. Food is the single largest type of waste in our daily trash.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1.3 billion tons of food worth nearly $680 billion are wasted each year. In Washington, more than 350,000 tons of edible food was disposed of in landfills in 2015.
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| WSDA Director Derek Sandison (L) speaks with a colleague at the NASDA conference. * credit NASDA |
NASDA, a non-profit organization supporting agriculture, held its annual conference in New Mexico this year, drawing agriculture leaders from around the country, including WSDA Director Derek Sandison. Conference attendees discuss a broad range of food policy issues, including food waste.
Director Sandison joined NASDA members at the meeting as they adopted a new policy on food waste that follows the group’s “Pledge to End Food Waste.”
"Agriculture both defines and demands sustainability," he said. "It’s too costly to the agriculture industry, the environment and the people who rely on the nutritious food we work so hard to produce to let it go to waste."
WSDA has joined NASDA's pledge to support:
• public policies that offer opportunities to reduce, recover and recycle food waste.
• efforts to improve coordination and communication among federal, state and municipal stakeholders to use resources more efficiently and effectively to address food waste.
• the food waste hierarchy framework.
• research efforts and new technologies that address reduction and recovery of food waste.
Waste reduction in Washington
Washington state has already adopted a waste-reduction goal shared by our federal partners.
For more than a year, WSDA worked with lawmakers, stakeholders and other agencies to craft food-waste-reduction legislation that was passed this year.
The newly approved legislation directs the state Department of Ecology to develop a plan to cut food-waste in half by 2030 in consultation with WSDA and the Department of Health.
To achieve that waste-reduction goal, the first step is preventing food waste in the first place, then rescuing edible food that would go to waste and getting it to hungry people. When that’s not possible, recovering the nutrients in that food through composting and anaerobic digesters is another option.
WSDA's role in waste reduction
WSDA is leading two stakeholder engagement groups – one for food businesses and one for hunger relief professionals.
This month, WSDA organized a meeting of stakeholders from Kroger, Washington Hospitality Association, Pasco Farmers Market, the Washington Dairy Council and the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. The group shared ideas, voiced their concerns, and let us know what they’ve been doing to to reduce food waste in their respective industries.
Over the coming months, WSDA will engage experts in food safety, food waste collection and conversion, education and behavioral change, hunger relief and food business as partners in developing the plan.
Drafts of the Washington Food Waste Reduction Plan are scheduled to be available in spring 2020, with a final plan ready by September 2020.