Finding Real-Life Solutions to Growing Food Waste Epidemic

AAEA member research on how people react to real-life solutions

We are now in the biggest week of the year for eating in the United States. One estimate shows Americans will spend nearly three billion dollars on Thanksgiving dinner food in 2017.

But how much of that will end up in the garbage?

The United Stated Department of Agriculture estimates between 30 and 40 percent of the country’s food supply is wasted. There are several efforts in place to curb food waste, including composting and campaigns to show the impact of throwing food away. But are they working?

Danyi Qi and Brian Roe of The Ohio State University conducted an experiment in which people got free lunch in a cafeteria setting and were given different information about if, or how, leftover food would be handled.

Roe, who leads the Ohio State Food Waste Collaborative, says this is a critical issue that “people can rally around, but there isn’t one set way to combat the problem.

“(The country) is moving forward with a lot of good ways to reduce food waste,” Roe said, “but what ways are working in harmony and which are working in conflict?”

What happens when people know if food is being composted? How does guilt play a role in food waste? Those questions and more are analyzed in a paper by Qi and Roe titled “Foodservice Composting Crowds out Consumer Food Waste Reduction Behavior in a Dining Experiment.”

That paper was recently selected to appear in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. If you are interested in setting up an interview with the authors, please contact Jay Saunders in the AAEA Business Office.

ABOUT AAEA: Established in 1910, the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) is the leading professional association for agricultural and applied economists, with 2,500 members in more than 20 countries. Members of the AAEA work in academic or government institutions as well as in industry and not-for-profit organizations, and engage in a variety of research, teaching, and outreach activities in the areas of agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. The AAEA publishes two journals, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, as well as the online magazine Choices. To learn more, visit www.aaea.org.

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