Photo Credit: Zambia Daily Mail (https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/maize-crop-shed.jpg)
We posted in April about food waste. Most of that conversation was about initiatives at the consumer level. Remember? It was about throwing away one slice of pizza when you have three on the plate? One third of food served to customers or prepared by ourselves is lost. In fact, in 2015, in the USA alone, 130 billion pounds of food was simply “thrown away” – ending up in landfills and causing other problems, including greenhouse gasses and disease.
Turns out, that’s not the only place where there is food ‘loss’. We don’t always think about this as modern consumers, but there is a significant amount of food waste as “post-harvest loss” (described below). PM Network, PMI’s monthly magazine, features this in their excellent section, “The Edge”, with a story entitled “Fixing the Food Chain”.
What’s a story like this doing in PM Network? We’re not farmers, or agriculturalists, nor are we (necessarily) economists! We’re project managers. And aside from the fact that this is an important story that effects us as humans, another reason a story like this makes sense in PM Network is that it discusses a seven-year, $130 million project called YieldWise. As project managers, projects like this are – if nothing else – job and growth opportunities. We see them as much more – we see them as ‘green by definition’ projects. This initiative is about Post-Harvest Loss – the spoiling of food that could have been consumed by people. We encourage you to visit the site. But start off with this very short video (you can play it in-place below) about the problem that the project is out to solve.
The project will research and implement new ways to store, process, and transport produce to the changing markets of the region.
This particular effort takes place in Sub-Saharan Africa. But efforts like this are worldwide, and projects like YieldWise give project managers a chance to practice their profession and contribute to the planet’s health at the same time.
Champions 12.3 is another effort, consisting of a family of projects aimed at meeting a UN target. From their website:
At the 2015 United Nations General Assembly, countries of the world formally adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. SDG 12 seeks to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” The third target under this goal (Target 12.3) calls for cutting in half per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reducing food losses along production and supply chains (including post-harvest losses) by 2030.
To help convert Target 12.3 into reality, the global multi-stakeholder summit “No More Food to Waste” proposed the idea of developing a group of executives who would champion the cause of achieving SDG Target 12.3 or Champions 12.3. During the United Nations General Assembly’s Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, the government of The Netherlands formally called for its formation.
For those interested in these important and interesting projects, we provide the following resources as well:
