12 Million Metric Tonnes Of Food Wasted Annually

About 12 million metric tonnes of food produced for consumption in the country is wasted annually.

The causes of these food wastage or losses are numerous and occur through the stages of production, processing, retailing and consumption.

The Deputy Chief Executive of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), Dr John Odame-Darkaw, made this known in Accra at a forum organised by the FDA to create awareness of the need to adopt healthy practices to ensure food security.


Stakeholders

The forum brought together stakeholders, including traditional caterers associations, hotel operators, women in agricultural development, sanitation officers, among others.

It was on the theme, “Social Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty — the Role of Food Security”

Dr Odame said to ensure food safety, there was the need for systems to protect food supply from microbial, chemical, and physical hazards arising from the harvesting, transportation, processing, preparation, retail, storage, and services.

According to him, there was a correlation between food security and good health, which went a long way to break the poverty cycle.

Collaboration

The Principal Research Scientist at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Food Research Institute (FRI), Dr Charles Tortoe, underscored the need for public education, value addition, enforcement of laws and by-laws against adulteration of food, training programmes for stakeholders, as the way forward to ensure food security .

“Let us see food safety as a collaborative responsibility. The sanitation officers, FDA, food vendors, and even the media must be part of it”, he said.

Dr Tortoe said his outfit, in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), had embarked on Street Food Ghana Project aimed at generating research-based knowledge to support the development of small businesses in the urban street food vending sector in the country.