Food waste: an expression of the evolution of current agricultural development systems

Though a global problem, food waste has different intensity and modalities depending on how developed the agrifood systems of the interested countries are: in developing countries, the phenomenon concerns mostly the loss of agricultural products, while industrialized countries are mainly interested by food waste. Loss and waste make up the main concerns of today’s development model, and are to be considered the expression of inefficiencies and distortions of processes of production and distribution, the costs of which tend to weigh on the weaker members of agrifood supply chains - farmers and consumers. The objective of this paper is to consider the issue of waste not as a single unrelated problem, but in the wider context of the recent evolution of the current models of agrifood development. In this way, we can highlight the main basis that lead to the inefficiencies that underlie loss and waste, and subsequent economic and social costs. More specifically, waste will be considered in relation both to the distortions of the competition regime, set by the great differences in bargaining power between the various members of the agrifood supply chains, and in relation to the main issues of the current agrifood development models, mainly the issues of malnutrition and environmental sustainability.