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KEYNOTE SPEECH
By
DIRECTOR GENERAL OF INDONESIAN
AGENCY
FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP AND CONFERENCE
ON
AGRICULTURAL POSTHARVEST HANDLING AND
PROCESSING
“Reducing Food Losses and Waste”
Bogor, Indonesia
November 18-19, 2015
Your honour, Representatives from FAO Rome and FAO
Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Honourable invited speakers,
Prominent experts from all over the world,
Distinguished Participants,
Ladies and Gentleman,
Assalammu’alaikum
wa
Ramatullahi
wa
Barakatuh,
I would like to begin by giving thanks to the Almighty
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala; His blessings are evident as
we gather here today to take part in the International
Workshop and Conference on Agricultural Postharvest
Handling and Pro cessing under the theme "Reducing
Food Losses and Waste", in this beautiful rain city,
Bogor. My warmest welcome to all of you to Bogor,
Indonesia, and to this conference.
Honourable
invited
speakers,
Distinguished
Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The global population has exceeded seven billions and is
predicted to reach 10 billions by 2050, with a projected
increase in food demand of 50-70%. Meanwhile, there
are some issues regarding food losses and food waste
that amounts to 1.3 billion tons per year according to
the FAO report. Surely this is not a small amount
because it could feed 868 million people that are
chronically under-nourished, equating to one in eight
people worldwide.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
Food Losses and waste occur across all segments of the
food supply chain, which are from initial agricultural
production down to final household consumption.
During production stage or harvest time, food loss occur
in the form of grain left behind by poor harvesting
equipment, discarded fish, and fruit not harvested or
discarded because they fail to meet quality standards or
are uneconomical to harvest.
Food losses can also
occur at handling and storage stage, in the form of food
degraded by pests, fungus, and disease. Meanwhile at
processing and packaging stage, food losses occur in
the form of spilled milk, damaged fish, and fruit
unsuitable for processing. Processed foods may be lost
or wasted because of poor order forecasting and
inefficient factory processes. During distribution and
marketing in the form of edible food discarded because
it is non-compliant with aesthetic quality standards or is
not sold before “best before and “use-by” date. During
consumption in the form of food purchased by
consumers, restaurants, and caterers but not eaten. In
terms of stages of the food value chain, 24 percent of
global food loss and waste occurs at production, another
24 percent during handling and storage, and 35 percent
at consumption. These three stages taken together
account for more than 80 percent of global food loss
and waste.
Distinguished Participants, Ladies and
Gentlemen,
The exact causes of food losses and waste vary
throughout the world. They are often the result of
complex interactions within the supply chain. Food
losses and waste in industrialized countries are as high
as in
developing countries, but in the developing
countries more than 40% of them occur at postharvest
and processing level, meanwhile in the industrialized
countries, more than 40% of them take place at retail
or consumer levels.
The causes of these food losses
and waste in low-income countries are mainly connected
to financial, managerial and technical limitations in
harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in
difficult climatic conditions, infrastructure, packaging
and marketing systems. Therefore, food supply chains in
developing countries need to be strengthened by
encouraging small farmers to organize, diversify and
upscale their production and marketing. Investments in
infrastructure,
transportation,
food
industries
and
packaging industries are also required. Food losses
represent a waste of resources used in production such
as land, water, labor, energy and inputs.
Producing
food that will not be consumed leads to unnecessary
CO2 emissions in addition to loss of economic value of
the food produced.
Meanwhile in medium- and high-income countries food
is to a great extent wasted, meaning that it is thrown
away even if it is still suitable for human consumption.
Food waste refers to food losses that take place mainly
at the end of the food supply chain - in retail, in the
food service sector and at the consumer level - due to
discarding food that is perfectly edible, for various
reasons. Food waste is one of the biggest agricultural
and environmental problems that never heard about.
The amount of food that is thrown away in the world is
simply staggering and the studies in recent years have
shown that developing countries lose 30 to 80% of their
perishable foods (fruits, vegetables, root crops) before
consumption.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
Food losses and waste have many negative economic
and
environmental
impacts.
Economically,
they
represent a wasted investment that can reduce farmers’
incomes and increase consumers’ expenses such as
seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Environmentally, food
losses and waste inflict a host of impacts, including
unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and inefficiently
used water and land, which in turn can lead to
diminished natural ecosystems and the services they
provide. Food losses and waste rank as major emitters
of green house gasses globally.. In this case, cereals,
meat and vegetables are major contributors to the
carbon footprint of food losses and food waste in the
Asian region.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
Food losses and food waste not only cause economic
and environmental problems but also weaken food
security systems. We know that food security is a major
concern in large part of the developing world. FAO
reported that roughly 30% of food produced for human
consumption is lost or wasted globally. Therefore,
mitigating food losses and waste can make enormous
contribution to food security. In other words, reducing
the scale of losses and waste throughout the entire food
system is a crucial step towards improving global food
security and achieving a sustainable food future.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
The amount of food losses and waste in Indonesia has
been relatively high. This could be due to financial,
technical, managerial and institutional constraints on
production inputs, machineries, food preservation and
processing, packaging, handling, storage, distribution
and marketing infrastructures. On the other hand, the
availability of data and information about food losses
and waste are very limited. Indonesia with huge
population must address these issues very well. This is
important because the lack of official data that can be
referred to will affect the policy recommendations and
action plans taken in efforts to reduce food losses and
food waste in Indonesia.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
One of Indonesian Government current targets is
achieving
national
self-sufficiency
on
seven
food
commodities, i.e. rice, corn, soybean, meat, sugarcane,
chili and tomato. For this reason, Ministry of Agriculture,
The Republic Indonesia, is currently implementing a
national program, called UPSUS standing for Upaya
Khsusus
(Special
Efforts),
aimed
at
increasing
productivity and production while at the same time
reducing
yield
Indonesian
losses.
Government
In
this
national
rehabilitates
program,
and
builds
irrigation systems and all supporting facilities, develop
transportation access and networks, and provides
production inputs (such as seed, fertilizer and pesticide)
and machineries (such as transplanter and combine
harvester). The UPSUS program is being implemented in
33 provinces. Moreover, in 2015 revitalization of
processing equipments of rice, corn and soybean has
been done to reduce postharvest losses in seven
provinces. The revitalization program will be extended
to 20 provinces in 2016. Efforts have also been made to
improve storage facilities using an instore drying
technology. In addition to UPSUS program, five Agro
Science Parks (ASP), 16 Agro Techno Parks (ATP), and
one Agro Science-Techno Park have been developed in
2015 to increase the competitiveness of agricultural
products and to add value to agricultural by-products
through bioindustrial approach. Then in 2016, 10 ASP
and 23 ATP will be developed. Of course, the success of
these national programs require intensive national and
international collaborations.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
Collaborations between public and private sectors are
essential to support food losses and waste reduction
programs. In this case, a global food initiative, such as
Save Food Initiative, should be promoted and wellcoordinated, problems and solutions are shared, and
methodologies,
strategies
and
approaches
are
harmonized. Public-Private Partnership may include
improvement
of
production
planning,
processing
practices; preservation and packaging technologies;
transportation and logistics management; marketing
infrastructures
and
strategies,
purchasing
and
consumption habits. This should ensure that all supply
chain actors, receive a fair share of the benefits. We all
must keep in mind that all these actions require
investments by both the public and private sectors.
Distinguished
Participants,
Ladies
and
Gentlemen,
Therefore, the theme of this event, Reducing Food
Losses and Waste, runs well within the current issues,
challenges and required development. For this reason, I
applaud
the
collaboration
of
IAARD,
Ministry
of
Agriculture, Ministry of Research, Technology and
Higher Education, and FAO to convene this 2-days’
event. I do hope we will have fruitful discussions and
deliberations on information gaps and data collection in
reducing food losses and food waste, strategic action
plans, actions to be taken on the ground and best
practices against food losses and waste to meet our
main goal to “Save our Food”.
And with "Bismillahirrohmanirrohim", I declare the
International Workshop and Conference on Agricultural
Postharvest Handling and Processing with the theme
"Reducing Food Losses and Waste" officially open.
Welcome, and enjoy your stay in Bogor.
Billahit taufiq walhidayah,
Wassalamu’alaikum wa rohmatullahi wa barokatoh
Director General of IAARD
M. Syakir