NAIROBI, Oct. 2 (Xinhua)-- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday launched a global movement to help fight food waste as part of efforts to cut down on food losses due to bottlenecks in post-harvest storage, distribution and consumption.

The campaign dubbed, Stop the Waste, seeks to raise awareness about the huge amounts of edible food that is daily discarded, a habit that the UN agency said must be overcome in order to make real progress in eradicating global hunger.

"As part of this campaign, WFP has enlisted top restaurateurs and celebrity chefs from around the globe to join the movement by making their own pledge to #StopTheWaste," said the UN agency in a statement issued in Nairobi.

WFP has also launched a 30-second animated video as part of the campaign that aims to spotlight food waste and highlight simple solutions that can be taken to prevent it by educating people on how to get involved.

Andrew Zimmern, four-time James Beard award-winning TV personality, chef, writer and teacher, said feeding those in need requires a dozen different action steps as part of a multi-pronged solution to reduce, and eliminate food waste.

"This is a global problem at every level: from the farm to the wholesaler to the grocery store to your house and we can all do our part to help. By taking simple steps at home to reduce food waste is good for your wallet and the environment, and supporting organizations that rescue perfectly good landfill-bound produce is vital for feeding those in need," Zimmern said.

According to WFP, while there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, one-third of the four billion metric tons of food produced each year is lost or wasted, costing the global economy nearly 1 trillion U.S. dollars annually.

"At the same time, war and unrest are forcing more people to flee their homes than at any time since the Second World War, making it difficult for millions of people to grow their own food or buy it at an affordable price," said the UN agency.

WFP said part of achieving its goal of a world with Zero Hunger is preventing food loss, adding that it does this by helping smallholder farmers through the provision of new technologies for storage and transportation that prevent crops from spoiling prematurely and by connecting them with markets.

Experts say the campaign against food waste has resonated across the world as stakeholders join forces to implement strategic interventions that minimize the impact of this menace to ecosystems and livelihoods. Enditem

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