COP30 host Brazil on path to slash food waste

Under a broad agenda to address the climate emergency, COP30 will have a special target of discussing food systems, especially reducing the amount of food wasted during the chain. Previous to the conference, which will be held in the Brazilian city of Belém, a series of meetings and panels between the government and civil society have been putting the benefits of a pact against food loss on the table, both for reducing hunger and the impact on the environment.

While actually reducing the exploitation of fossil fuel and the deforestation rates are fundamental points to be implemented by global leaders in this COP, the food waste also plays an essential role in Brazil's environmental damage. The Latin American country is known for being one of the main food producers and exporters in the world, especially in the agribusiness sector. From the land to people's tables, however, the country has a leaking food chain. According to the UN Environment, Brazil produces some 20 million tonnes of food waste a year. The figure can be even more significant according to some national sources, which estimates from 46 to 55 million tons of food waste a year, or nearly 30 per cent of all food produced for humans. 

According to Luciana Chinaglia Quintão, founder of Brazil's first civil society food bank, an NGO called Banco de Alimentos (Food Bank), the major source of waste is in the land production (crops and harvest) followed by post-harvest and transportation and manufacturing and supply. Only 13.5 per cent of food is lost in households. "We are inefficient at all stages of food production. In the case of Brazil, our waste is more at the beginning of the chain and, in the case of rich countries, the waste is more concentrated at the end of the chain," she explained to FairPlanet. 

Despite this structure of the waste pyramids, Janaina Cunha, Director of Social Programs of the National Department of Sesc Mesa Brasil – the largest private network of food banks in Latin America – also highlights the general lack of consciousness of people regarding food.

"People are not aware of the impact of food left on their plates, or the disposal of waste every day. They don't realise from an environmental point of view what the volume that is produced means. The subject is not disseminated in schools, so we need to raise awareness both nationally and worldwide. It would be very helpful if the government implemented regular awareness campaigns. The more awareness we generate, the more responses we get," she said.

Impacts on people and climate

According to Ana Catalina Suárez Peña, Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation at The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN), food waste accounts for nearly 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 18 to 28 per cent of all methane that reaches the atmosphere - a gas that is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) in global warming within a 20 years period.

The use of land is also a significant part of the impact, as agriculture accounts for more than 27 per cent of GHG emissions in Brazil. Deforestation and other changes in land, typically related to the agribusiness, represent other 46.2 per cent of the emissions, according to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removal Estimation System (SEEG, in the Portuguese acronym).

On the other side, there is still a significant part of the Brazilian population experiencing hunger or food insecurity, which can vary from not accessing healthy food to skipping meals. Although it has been decreasing over the past years, it is nonetheless a considerable amount: 8.7 million people go hungry and 64 million Brazilians suffer from some degree of food insecurity, according to data compiled by the coalition Pacto contra a fome (Pact against hunger), which the NGO Banco de Alimentos integrates.

The federal government has been committing to reducing the amount of food that goes to the landfills since Brazil has endorsed the Reducing Methane Emissions from Organic Waste Declaration at COP29. In the coming days, the Ministry of Social Development will officially launch the Intersectoral Strategy to Reduce Food Losses and Waste in Brazil, which lists a set of actions to be implemented from production to final consumption. 

"The main goal of the strategy is to promote actions and initiatives aimed at preventing and reducing food loss and waste in Brazil, through the articulation of efforts by public and private agents and the promotion of public policies that favour access to adequate and healthy food for the Brazilian population and that reduce the impact of food loss and waste on climate change," stated Priscila Bochi, Brazil's general coordinator of food and nutrition security.

Bochi added that the new and most recent version of the Intersectoral Strategy, which will be instituted by a presidential decree, "has a working plan, which takes into account not only these stages of the food chain, from production to consumption, but also comes with a strong climate component."

On 12 June, the presidency signed the Decree no. 12.512/2025, which implements the Brazilian Food Banks Network and aims to integrate and strengthen food banks through intersectoral coordination with different institutions working on food and nutritional security. Its stated overall objective is to reduce food waste and guarantee the human right to adequate and healthy food.

The prevention of food waste is also expected to be a key topic at COP30. Peña noted that expectations are high for the Brazilian government, given that COP30 will be held in the Global South and in the context of President Lula’s administration, which has prioritised a global alliance to end hunger and malnutrition.

"The articulation between climate change and food systems is more relevant than ever, and what makes me happy is that the COP director has stated on several occasions that this is a COP for implementation." 

Food systems are also expected to play a significant role at COP30 - right down to what’s served on participants’ plates. The organisation plans to use inputs from family farming to prepare the meals offered at the event in Belém do Pará in November 2025.

According to the government, this decision reflects the broader expectation that the menu at COP in Brazil will align with climate commitments and aims to offer "healthy, fairly priced and environmentally friendly food."

Food banks: largest food savers 

Efforts to reduce food waste are not new. Since the 1990s, food banks in Brazil have been working to redistribute food that would otherwise be discarded - often due to commercial quality standards or nearing expiration dates - redirecting it instead to people in vulnerable situations or to social institutions.

Nearly half of Brazil's 235 food banks are currently run by Sesc Mesa Brasil  - an institution established 30 years ago at the initiative of entrepreneurs from the goods, services and tourism trade to combat hunger and waste), according to Ana Catalina Peña.

In 2024, Sesc Mesa Brasil received roughly 57,100 tonnes of food from 3,000 donor partners, including major companies, wholesale supermarket chains, farms, fruit and vegetable stores and small fairs and shops. 

The Global FoodBanking Network - an organization that supports the creation and strengthening of food banks worldwide - is a key partner of Sesc Mesa Brasil. The Brazilian institution also contributed to the Global Atlas of Food Donation Policy, which analyses laws and policies impacting food donation globally and offers recommendations to improve frameworks and promote food recovery as a strategy to combat hunger.

"The Atlas is a very important experience, because it materialises results and shows how big this problem [of food waste] is," explained Janaina Cunha. "It's a humanitarian-social issue that goes beyond the boundaries of solidarity. The materialisation that the Atlas brings gives us important criteria [...] to understand which are the biggest hotspots of poverty and how they relate to hunger, where the main and most impactful initiatives come from and how we can constantly reshape or update our work."

Also founded in the 1990s, another pioneering initiative was Banco de Alimentos, which distributed more than 2,000 tonnes of food in 2024 alone, reaching 95,000 people. Its founder, economist Luciana Quintão, recognised early in her career that hunger was an issue she needed to confront. In the organisation's early years, she faced numerous challenges, including limited interest from large businesses - initial donations came primarily from small enterprises - and restrictive legislation that made food donation more difficult.

Until 2020, individuals or companies donating food in Brazil could be held legally liable for any harm caused to recipients. Despite years of advocacy by rights activists, it was only five years ago that Law No. 14016/2020 - on which Luciana Quintão now advises as a consultant - was enacted. The law allows food producers and suppliers to donate products that are no longer marketable but still safe for human consumption, provided they meet specific criteria regarding expiration dates, storage conditions, integrity and nutritional and sanitary safety.

Peña believes that food banks, while not the sole remedy for the food waste crisis, represent an important part of the solution.

"Food banks are the organizations that most prevent food waste. In 2024, food banks rescued 512 thousand tons of food worldwide, but that represents only 0.040 percent [of all waste]. We have a dream to reach, by 2030, one percent, going to 13 million tons of food rescued, a 26 times growth," she explained. Achieving a more efficient management of food, however, is a multi-systemic challenge, she cautioned. 

"It is so important to work with farmers and give them technology and knowledge," she concluded, "but also with urban businesses - so that they have better practices and reduce their own waste." She further recommended working with municipalities and governments to shape legislation that prevents organic waste, as well as engaging consumers to ensure food doesn’t end up in the trash.

Image by Mato Grasso.