We grew up with the familiar phrase from our mothers: “Finish your food. There are children starving elsewhere.” Not only was this admonition necessary, it served to ingrain in children the importance of not wasting food.

They were not wrong. It is true that food does not always get to those who need it most, yet some seem to have more than enough. Only when probing these issues further do we begin to understand that the journey of food from the farm to the plate is neither simple nor guaranteed. Food can be lost at many points, long before it reaches the people who need it.

To reduce loss and waste, we must first understand where along the food chain losses occur and how much is being lost or wasted. Though they are discussed together, food loss and food waste are distinct. Loss occurs earlier in the supply chain such as in farms or during handling, storage and transport while food waste occurs at retail, restaurants and households.

According to a report by my colleagues at WRI released last year, Kenya loses up to 40 per cent of the food it produces every year. This is around nine million tonnes of food valued at Sh72 billion. These are staggering figures, particularly because 15 million people or about 28 per cent of the population, face hunger.

Food loss

Across the continent, food loss ranges between 30 and 50 per cent. It means that while millions of Africans struggle to access sufficient food, a significant share of the food that is produced never fulfills its intended purpose. The contradiction is difficult to ignore. A section of the population faces food insecurity while much of the food produced is lost.

However, loss is also about the systems that allow food to spoil. A farmer can harvest a good crop but lack adequate storage. Fresh produce can deteriorate while being taken to the market. Fish can lose value when processing and cold-chain infrastructure is inadequate. A farmer can also be left with produce that has no viable market.

Globally, food loss and waste account for eight to 10 per cent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

The Africa Food Systems Forum takes place in Kigali, Rwanda, from September 1 to 4. The summit has catalysed billions of dollars in agricultural investment, shaped continental food policy through the Malabo Declaration and built an unrivalled network of stakeholders committed to advancing Africa’s food systems.

Now in its 20th year, the forum will be held under the theme: “Investing in Africa’s Agri-Food Systems: Nourishing Nations, Growing Jobs, Building Resilience”. It will examine how investments can transform Africa’s food systems.

What this forum invites is a new way of investing in food systems and ensuring an integrated approach that addresses challenges for nature, climate and food equity.

It invites an approach that moves beyond isolated interventions towards financing models that recognise that healthy soils, resilient farmers, thriving ecosystems and nutritious diets are inseparable.

It is a call to investors, governments and innovators to see food systems not as an industry to be funded in silos, but as the connective tissue linking Africa’s economic growth, environmental stewardship and the dignity of every person who grows, sells or depends on food.

For Africa, this could have consequences far beyond reducing waste. When farmers are able to sell more of what they produce, they earn more. When food reaches markets in a good condition, businesses capture more value. When surplus food is redistributed rather than discarded, more people can be nourished. When less food ends up in landfills, we reduce unnecessary emissions while making better use of the land, water and energy that went into producing it.

Food security

Addressing loss and waste, therefore, becomes a way of improving food security, strengthening livelihoods and making economies efficient while reducing emissions. Our mothers were not thinking about greenhouse gas emissions or food system resilience when they made us finish our food. The lesson they taught us is still relevant: that food carries value, that abundance is fragile and that wasting or losing it should never be taken lightly.

We no longer have the excuse of ignorance. We have the data and the research to grasp the scale of what happens when food is lost or wasted. We know that when food is lost, hunger deepens and livelihoods are undermined.

We have the solutions to act. The question before us is not one of whether we have enough knowledge. What we must understand is whether we will summon the courage, the investment and the collective resolve to close the gap between what we know and what we do.

The future of Africa’s food systems will depend not only on what we grow, but on what we refuse to lose.

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Ms Mathai is the MD for Africa & Global Partnerships at the World Resources Institute and Chair of Wangari Maathai Foundation