One of the main objectives of the FOLOU project is to provide new tools and methods to measure and estimate the magnitude of food losses at the primary production stage for five commodity groups: (i) grain and pulses, (ii) fruits and vegetables, (iii) root tubers and oil crops, (iv) meat and animal derived products and (v) fish. This will be carried out both at regional or state level, and in aggregate at EU level. A substantial methodological improvement in this area will allow a better assessment of the impact (environmental, economic and social) that food losses during the primary production phase have on: (i) food insecurity and malnutrition, (ii) GHG emissions and the creation of pressure ecosystems and biodiversity, and (iii) economic losses.

Primarily, our attention is directed towards quantifying the amount of food losses generated at primary production stage by adapting the work done by the Joint Research Center (JRC) under “Building a balancing system for food waste accounting at National Level”. The approach considered for quantifying food losses is aligned with the latter work dealing with food waste while conserving the same boundaries and assumptions. Two approaches were delivered: i) How to quantify food losses at primary production stage from available data and ii) quantify the total production losses reflecting food losses additional to other losses resulting on the cultivation of certain crops for other uses that are not for human consumption.