Governments need to plan on their lands to ensure that conservation areas remain intact and production areas are protected.
Experts in the agriculture value chain are calling for integrated planning among agriculturalists as well as conservationists in order to address actual food waste, which is post-plate.
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) last year, 40 per cent of all food produced in Kenya goes to waste, which translates to 10 million metric tonnes of food wasted annually.
Speaking during a regional meeting under the Kenya Landscapes Actors Platform (KemLAP), World Wide Fund (WWF) Leader for Africa’s Food Future Initiative Nancy Rapando noted that ‘food loss and waste is a critical challenge on our landscape’.
“We are losing a lot of food through waste, but this food is actually the one making people get tempted to expand, and therefore we are advocating for the establishment of food banks at all production levels to minimise waste and post-harvest losses,” she said.
According to the WWF and the Inter-Sectoral Forum on Afrobiodiversity and Agroecology (ISFAA), setting food banks at various levels could help to reverse food losses and thus guarantee supply for the same consumers grappling with acute shortages.
“I think food banks have been effective in other countries around the world. In Ethiopia, they have practiced food banks and redistributed food, but actually, food banks originated from the West, like in Canada, where they have been used to redistribute food to other people. So what we keep on saying is that let us keep on trying,” said Rapando.
Food banks play an increasingly important role in society by mitigating hunger and helping needy people; however, research aimed at improving food bank operations is limited, she noted.
According to Rapando, the concept of food banking might look really new, but there is a need to fix the systems rather than loose food.
She noted that though food banks were relatively a new concept in developing countries, there is a need to embrace them to tame the increasing food waste and losses, especially at farm and storage levels.
Inter Sectoral Forum on Afrobiodiversity and Agroecology (ISFAA) food scientist and agro-ecology expert Antony K’Owiti said the new narrative in the global food sector is employing new innovations geared towards enhancing food safety.
Lack of storage facilities is a big challenge, K’Owiti noted, saying they have been encouraging and working with various players from the food industry just to establish systems that could allow for storage of excess food, be it from the farm, that which has not been cooked, and also the ones in the hotels and restaurants.
“Locally, some farming communities have embraced food banks to save on food surplus but at times are wasted due to lack of strong storage. Setting up the food banks will require Government and stakeholders to develop measures and relevant policies,” K’Owiti said.
He gave an example of a community in Kajiado County working with other stakeholders to preserve food by establishing food banks, a strategy he said has helped them to reduce food loss and waste.
Most developed countries have managed to set up food banks owing to the sound infrastructure and embracing of modern technology.
K’Owiti said that ISFAA is advocating for agroecology for food system transformation, and together with other stakeholders and partners, they have been able to develop a strategy dubbed ‘National Agroecology Strategy for Food System Transformation.”
The strategy, K’Owiti said, has gone through all the stages of development, right from the inception, gathering ideas, up to national validation.
In September this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, with the support of WWF and ISFAA, convened to review and validate the draft National Agroecology Strategy for Food Transformation 2024-2033.
The strategy seeks to put the country on an ecologically resilient and socially inclusive food system pathway, and WWF, through Africa’s Food Future Initiative, has been supporting the strategy development process since its inception two years ago on integration of aspects of agriculture impacts on the environment, emphasising the need for land restoration, sustainable land use management, and management of food loss and waste.
Food Banking in Kenya (FBK) is one of the organisations that has been working towards reducing food loss and waste, alleviating hunger, and enhancing the sustainability of the vulnerable through the sourcing and distribution of food while networking with like-minded organisations to enhance self-sustaining, income-generating activities.
By Wangari Ndirangu
