Food waste

There are some areas where it's hard to get a solution without government intervention. Carbon prices, for example. Not saying it's impossible, it's just hard.

There are also plenty of areas where policy is probably wrong and could use advice from a Chief Science Advisor. For example, setting an air quality standard for schools that balances cost of cleaner air against benefits from fewer teachers and kids out sick. Seems important. Naomi Wu's put up interesting stuff on far-UV light. Does the science stack up? What would it cost to put those in schools, if government ordered at scale for every school in the country? Would doing so bend the cost curve and set an example for others to follow?

Little things like that. Might matter. There have been a lot of illness-related school absences, and the government has claimed to be keen on reducing school absences.

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor just put out a report on the critical issue of... food waste.

Normally you want to start with whether there's a potential policy problem. 

But every part of the system has strong incentive to avoid food waste.

A cabbage that doesn't make it onto the truck to get to market is money that the farmer doesn't get. Farmers like having money. They will invest in getting food to market up to the point at which getting the next cabbage onto the truck costs more than it's worth. Reducing spoilage isn't free. Farmers have to balance things. They are best placed to do so on their end. Who could know better than they do?

Transport companies that can't get their act together to deliver food in good condition wind up losing customers to those who can. That also means money. Transport companies prefer having money to not having money. They will invest in reducing spoilage up to the point at which the expected costs of doing so are greater than the benefits. Reducing spoilage isn't free. Shipping companies have to balance things. They are best placed to do so for their part of the production chain. Who could know better than they do?

Grocers that throw out a lot of spoiled food are throwing away money. They paid for the goods, and get no revenue from the ones they throw out. Grocers like having money. Didn't we just have an inquiry into whether grocers like having money too much? Spoiled food is wasted money. Grocers will invest in reducing spoilage up to the point at which the next dollar invested in it saves less than a dollar's worth of food. Reducing spoilage isn't free. Grocers have to balance things. They are best placed to do so for their part of the production chain. Who could know better than they do?

Households that throw away spoiled food are throwing away money. They paid for the food, and don't get to eat it. Households like having edible food and like having money. Don't we regularly hear news stories about people not being able to afford enough food? Spoiled food is wasted money. Households will invest in reducing spoilage and avoiding waste up to the point at which the next dollar's worth of effort in doing so saves less than a dollar's worth of food, as the household values things. Reducing spoilage and waste isn't free. Households have to balance things. They are best placed to do so for their part of the production chain. Who could know better than they do?

Spoiled food winds up in a few places. If it's in a household's compost bin, it can result in GHG emissions that aren't priced. But government seems to like composting. If it goes down the waste disposal, it winds up in the city's sludge plant along with human waste. I'm pretty sure those plants are in the ETS. If it goes into the trash can, it winds up at landfill. Landfills pay for their emissions, and have every incentive to reduce those emissions. Some capture and use the captured methane. If it winds up being fed to pets or to livestock, it displaces other feed and needn't be worried about.

And then we get the press release on the PMCSA's report from NZ Food Waste Champions. Where do you even start? 

They want a national food waste strategy with Targets! and Structures! and Systems! and Mechanisms!. 

The recommendations delivered to the Government include the need for a national food loss and waste strategic action plan, a reduction target, and structures and systems to empower stakeholders to act on them; mechanisms for ensuring more New Zealand-specific reliable and comprehensive food waste data; better strategies aimed at preventing food loss at  source; and enabling conditions that promote food rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food is never treated as waste.

The report gives a bullet-point list of first steps in preventing food losses in production. One of them was "exploring the potential of cooperative business models to improve farmers' market power." 

It is ...not obvious... why a coop would be preferable or how market power enters into any of this. The report seems to worry that buyers with market power can insist on high standards for delivered food, resulting in diversion of 'nutritious food' (ie potentially unpalatable to their customers, but still edible, and could be on-sold to Wonky Box) away from tables. There seems little consideration of that high standards by grocers might encourage producer practices that avoid bruised fruit that has a shorter shelf-life. 

There was one sensible bit in the press release.  

Dawson cites food packaging decisions as an example. “Moving to more sustainable packaging solutions is important, but what if that packaging means the food inside has a shorter shelf-life, which leads to higher levels of waste with greater levels of emissions?”

If grocers have chosen those options because consumers want them, they've made the balancing. If consumers want dumb-forms of packaging because they falsely believe those versions are somehow better for the environment, then maybe government could decide to run fewer anti-plastics campaigns. If grocers have chosen those options either because compelled by regulation or under threat of regulation if they do not, or because of misguided government-sponsored messaging around sustainability, then government has skewed the balance and done harm. Regulation doesn't do the comprehensive balancing that grocers would otherwise do. 

Similarly, the report recommends evaluating the Grocery Supply Code on "trade term driven food loss and waste." If the regulator sets supply terms that aren't what willing parties would contract to on their own, there's again the risk that government has skewed the balance and done harm. Regulation doesn't do the comprehensive balancing that grocers and suppliers discover through negotiation. 

Highlighting how regulatory mandates can inadvertently create waste is great. It's the kind of thing a new Ministry for Regulation could be doing. 

Another potential area for investigation - not sure whether it's in the report, though - would be the darned restrictions against building things on Precious Agricultural Land. Where those things can include restrictions against putting processing facilities on that land, they wind up requiring that food be trucked farther away before processing, which increases damage and waste. It's one of the things that National promised to look into; the restrictions on use of agricultural land are entirely a government-caused problem.  

The rest seems madness.

They apparently wrote four reports on this stuff. In this government budget situation. And with rather more important areas where scientific advice could improve government policy where there is an actual policy problem. With 500 "experts and stakeholders across the motu" having had to spend time on it. 

It all does make one wonder about waste-reduction.