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The indicator (a) aims to measure food losses along the supply chain. This indicator (b) aims to measure the total amount of food that is wasted in tonnes. Both indicators look to divide the food value chain and measure the efficiency of the food system.

Index of the changes in the food losses percentages along the supply chain of key commodities over time. SDG 12.3.1(a) is computed as a ratio of Food Loss Percentages in the current year and the Food Loss Percentages in the base year according to a standard fixed-base index formula.

SDG 12.3.1(b) aims to measure the total amount of food that is wasted in tonnes. It complements SDG 12.3.1(a) on Food Loss (which is under the custodianship of FAO).

Ministry of Agriculture (MOA)

Ministry of Agriculture (MOA)

Annual

Index

Tonnes 

Food: Any substance—whether processed, semi-processed, or raw—that is intended for human consumption. “Food” includes a drink and any substance that has been used in the manufacture, preparation, or treatment of food. “Food” also includes material that has spoiled and is therefore no longer fit for human consumption. It does not include cosmetics, tobacco, or substances used only as drugs. It does not include processing agents used along the food supply chain, for example, water to clean or cook raw materials in factories or at home. 

Inedible (or non-edible) parts: Components associated with a food that, in a particular food supply chain, are not intended to be consumed by humans. Examples of inedible parts associated with food could include bones, rinds, and pits/stones. “Inedible parts” do not include packaging. What is considered inedible varies among users (e.g., chicken feet are consumed in some food supply chains but not others), changes over time, and is influenced by a range of variables including culture, socio-economic factors, availability, price, technological advances, international trade, and geography.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) includes waste originating from households, commerce, and trade, small businesses, office buildings and institutions (schools, hospitals, government buildings). It also includes bulky waste (e.g., old furniture, mattresses) and wastes from selected municipal services, e.g., waste from park and garden maintenance, waste from street cleaning services (street sweepings, the content of litter containers, market cleansing waste), if managed as waste. Further information on municipal solid waste is defined in the SDG indicator methodology for 11.6.1.

The following concepts are adopted for the calculation of indicator 12.3.1:

• Quantitative food loss and waste – is the decrease in mass of food (FAO’s Conceptual Framework for Food Losses and Waste).
• Loss takes place from the point of maturity up to but excluding the retail stage (the meaning of ‘maturity’ for livestock and fish must be defined). For the indicator and the data collected loss is measured in percentage terms (id).
• Agriculture production data for crops refer to the actual harvested production from the field orchard or garden, excluding harvesting and threshing losses and that part of crop not harvested for any reason.
• The value of production which serves as weights is equal to production quantities multiplied by a reference price. The reference prices used in the GFLI are international dollar prices calculated using the Geary Khamis equation method and based on FAOSTAT production and produce price data. Value of production is also the default selection criteria for the ten key commodities by country.
• The FLI is based on the international Central Product Classification version 2.1 expanded. Commodities are then grouped according to FAO’s Food Groups used in the Supply Utilization Accounts and Food Balance Sheets and further grouped into fine main categories.

Sub-indicator 12.3.1 (a) must be disaggregated by product and stage of the supply chain at the country level. Countries will likely gain the most value from the disaggregated Food Loss Percentage at the sub-national level by geographic area or agro-ecological zone, points of the value chain (farm, transport, markets, processers), economic sectors (small-holders or traditional sector versus large and commercial farms/firms).

For sub-indicator 12.3.1 (b), disaggregation of food waste is by destination is important for understanding the best way to optimize the use of food waste for fertilizer.

This includes:

• Co-digestion/anaerobic digestion,
• Composting/aerobic process,
• Controlled combustion,
• Land application,
•  Landfill,
• Refuse/discards/litter

(a) Food Loss Index (FLI), is a fixed-based index as follows:

 (b) Food Waste Index

A full methodology for this indicator is available in the document entitled, “Measuring Waste in the Context of the SDGs”.

For the purpose of this indicator, the methodology aims to estimate the amount of food in the total waste stream.

For level 1, the global modelling approach will estimate a proportion of food in the total waste stream data (e.g. municipal solid waste, MSW) and apply the proportion to the total. The work on this model will utilize the existing efforts to compile information for SDG 11.6.1 on municipal solid waste management and will utilize existing information on global waste, including World Bank publication “What a Waste 2.0, A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050”. Some countries publish data on the ratio of food waste to the total MSW. 

For level 2, the scope of which stages of the supply chain can be covered and estimate the total amount of food wasted for each supply chain stream is identified. The amount of food waste within a stage of the food supply chain shall be established by measuring food waste generated by a sample of food business operators or households in accordance with any of the following methods or a combination of those methods or any other method equivalent in terms of relevance, representativeness and reliability.

N/A

A major limitation is data availability.

A challenge resulting from the flexible methodology is one of consistency and comparability.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.