African farmers need sustainable solutions to reduce food waste
African farmers need sustainable solutions to reduce food waste - Sustainable food, cooling and cold-chain experts from around the globe are gathering in Washington D.C to create a blueprint for rolling out affordable solutions to help African food producers reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprint. The Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain Summit will take place in the United States on 15 March to identify partnership and investment opportunities to scale up the impact of existing initiatives across Africa. The Summit is co-organised by the Centre for Sustainable Cooling, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the United Nations Environment Programme's United for Efficiency initiative (U4E), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). They will focus on sustainable and scalable cold-chain solutions - such as optimising energy efficiency, renewable energy, alternatives to conventional cooling, low global warming potential refrigerants - that can be quickly and easily deployed. Toby Peters, Co-Director, Centre for Sustainable Cooling and Professor of Cold Economy at the University of Birmingham, said: "Food saved is as important as food produced, since we must boost food availability by around 60% by 2050 to feed our growing global population. Up to 40% of food is lost between farm and market in sub-Saharan Africa. "This Summit will help us to share learnings, identify the skill, business models and support and collaborations needed to accelerate the transition to sustainable cooling meeting the needs of African farmers and supply chains fit for their operating environments." In Africa, some 80% of farms are smaller than two hectares and produce 70% of the continent's total food.
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