A public consultation has been launched on Ireland’s draft national food waste prevention roadmap, according to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

All relevant stakeholders in the agri-food sector, including retailers, food service, processors, consumer representatives and farmers, are invited to make submissions.

A commitment to halve food waste by 2030 is included within Ireland’s Food Vision 2030 strategy and follows targets set by the United Nations.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has stated that food waste contributes annually to about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Aim

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 aims to halve per-capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses, by 2030.

Minister McConalogue said: “Tackling food waste, cutting back or eliminating it altogether, is good for food producers, consumers and the environment and will require behavioural change by all of us.

“We want now, in this consultation, to hear from those who can provide insight into how food waste reduction can be achieved and to achieve the target to halve our food waste by 2030.”

Submissions on the draft national food waste prevention roadmap are now invited from the public and interested stakeholders.

The closing time and date for submissions is 5.30pm on Thursday 24 March 2022.

Further information is available here.

Read more

Climate Conversations: taking action on household food waste