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Discarded food and resource depletion

Nature Food volume 1, pages 660–662 (2020)Cite this article

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Food systems are driven by incentives that often lead to food being discarded before entering the market and to the degradation of natural resources. Vegetable production in the water-scarce province of Almería, Spain, illustrates this and highlights the need for policies ensuring ethical and environmental sustainability standards.

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Fig. 1: Recent trends in Almería’s tomato production.
Fig. 2: Environmental impact associated with vegetables discarded in Andalusia in 2018 and 2019.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are funded by the European Research Council grant agreement no. 647038 (BIODESERT). F.T.M. acknowledges support from Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/041).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Multidisciplinar para el Estudio del Medio “Ramón Margalef”, Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain

    Jaime Martínez-Valderrama, Emilio Guirado & Fernando T. Maestre

  2. Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain

    Fernando T. Maestre

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  1. Jaime Martínez-Valderrama
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  3. Fernando T. Maestre
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Correspondence to Jaime Martínez-Valderrama.

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Martínez-Valderrama, J., Guirado, E. & Maestre, F.T. Discarded food and resource depletion. Nat Food 1, 660–662 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00186-5

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