[Jill_the_Pill]

It's a climate and biodiversity concern: overproduction wastes farmland that could be, or used to be, wild. The energy put into food transport and storage was used for nothing. Wasted produce rots, giving off methane, and wasted meat or dairy represents double waste, as the animals were raised on crops.

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2022/01/24/food-waste-and-it...

You fix it by making people aware and asking them to act responsibly.

[asdff]

Land would not be wild if it wasn't producing crop X. That land is put into productive use because it has been bought and sold to be put into productive use. If its not a field of cattle its a field of soy. If its not a field of soy its a junk yard. If its not a junk yard the owners are desperately trying to get a housing development or an amazon warehouse built, etc. No land owner in this country buys land content to let it sit wild generating no money and incurring costs, unless they are rich as hell and don't want neighbors nearby. If you want more land set aside to be wild, it comes from establishing preserves, not changing how one particular land using industry works. That's just cutting off one snake off the head of medusa, there are dozens left you haven't cut, and rest assured two more will take its place.

[hotnfresh]

The “acting responsibly” part costs money in labor, if you apply it to the parts of the supply chain that really matter. This is just another way of arriving at “raise food prices”.

[Jill_the_Pill]

How does "don't buy more than you know you can use" and "don't produce more than you know you can sell" cost more labor?

[hotnfresh]

It has to have some cost or we’d already do it. Right?

Recovering waste in production and transportation is labor costs. If it were cost-effective, they’d already do it. Recovering waste at the grocery stores costs labor and/or loss of sales in excess of the cost of the risk of waste. Same at restaurants. Again, if it wouldn’t cost them more to avoid that waste, they already would.

Admittedly, at home, it’s mostly a time cost, but good luck convincing people to spend even a couple more hours a week in the kitchen and meal planning and pantry organizing to save small amounts of money (and really cutting home food waste takes a lot more than a couple hours a week)