The Department of Horticulture and Landscape Engineering at the College of Agriculture, University of Kirkuk, in cooperation with the Continuing Education Division, organized a seminar on reducing food loss and waste toward a sustainable food system, enhancing food security, and protecting natural resources, with the attendance and participation of teaching staff, College employees, and postgraduate students.
The seminar included a lecture delivered by Lecturer Ahmed Salah Al-Din Baha Al-Din, which aimed to identify points of food loss and waste throughout the food supply chain, including farming, harvesting, handling, transportation, storage, processing, markets, restaurants, households, and consumers. The lecturer noted that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has identified reducing food loss and waste as an important pathway toward improving food security and resource-use efficiency.
The lecturer added that losing part of a crop means producing additional quantities to compensate for what has been lost. Therefore, reducing food loss can improve the efficiency of water and land use, increase farmers’ income, increase food availability, reduce the need for additional production, and lessen pressure on natural resources.
