Please save food! | Vardan Urutyan Urutyan | TEDxYerevanSalon

Vardan Urutyan, Director of the ICARE Foundation and Associate Professor at Texas University, shares his insights on the rising amount of food waste in Armenia.

Vardan Urutyan is the Director of the International Centre for Agribusiness Research and Education (ICARE) Foundation, Yerevan. H’s also an Associate Professor of the Texas A&M University, USA. He holds a PhD degree from the Armenian State Economics University and completed a post-doctoral program in Agribusiness Finance and Risk Management at the University of Guelph, Canada. Dr. Urutyan stood at the sources of establishing ICARE in 2005, which is a leading institution committed to develop sustainable capacity in the Armenian food and agribusiness sector through implementation of state-of-the-art educational, career development and research programs. As a recognized international expert, Vardan has been working with the leading international research and education institutions, NGO sector and government in dozens of countries in Europe, America, CIS, and elsewhere. He is an author of the book “Agricultural Cooperatives” and over 30 research articles published in many different countries.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

We and Our Mountains,
have you seen this movie?

I'm sure you did, and I think
you will agree with me

that this is the masterpiece
of the Armenian cinematography.

Every time you watch this movie,

you discover something new
on a broad range of topics,

starting from politics
and even agriculture and economics.

I'd like to share a piece of that movie,

that I consider very important

for each farmer, an economist
and even a policy maker.

Let's watch that.

(Video in Armenian)

[Do you think taking the herd to the city
like this is the right thing to do?]

[First, we are not sheep sellers;
the State is the one buying it.]

[We are not supposed to get there
and ask them to buy our sheep.]

[They need to come and ask
if we have any sheep to sell.]

[Then they need to send
100 trucks to load the sheep]

[and get to the slaughter house
in half an hour.]

[There are 830 sheep ...
70 km distance in two days ...]

[Each sheep in these two days
will lose at least two kg of weight.]

[830 times two ... 1,660 kg]

[or 1.6 tons of meat loss.]

[1,600 divided by 20 makes 80 sheep.]

[If someone supplies an extra 80 sheep,]

[the State awards him the title of hero.]

[His photo gets published
in newspapers in Moscow,]

[and he gets 1,000 rouble reward.]

[Now we are witnessing a loss
of 1.6 tons of meat,]

[but nobody will blame us.]

[While actually we should be imprisoned.]

It's amazing, yeah?

It's amazing how literate were
the Armenian farmers in the 1960s.

(Laughter)

In one minute, Pavle was able to recognize

that he's losing
live weight of the animals,

calculate how much was lost,

and even suggest that, by the law,
they are to be imprisoned.

He's talking about the prevention,
how to prevent the loss.

In today's terms, these 80 sheep,

which is now Armenia's
top exportable product,

would be worth about four million drams.

There'll be no farmer
that would like to have such a loss,

if you realized about that.

But in the modern world,
it happens over and over again,

in many sectors of the economy.

Globally, food waste and loss
is a hot topic, today.

About 1/3 of the food produced
in the world for human consumption

gets wasted or lost.

This is nearly 1.3 billion tons

or more than half
of the world's annual cereal crop.

The issue should concern
not only the rich, developed countries

but also small developing
countries, such as Armenia.

Because in Armenia, agriculture
and the food processing together

make about 30% of the GDP of the country.

We have a lot of people
employed in agriculture,

about 36% of the work force,

and most importantly,

we still have a high rate
of rural poverty, about 32% nationwide,

but in certain regions we have
even more, alarming rate of rural poverty.

Preventing food waste and loss

will have a positive impact
on raising incomes;

improving food security,
food quality and safety;

on economic development;
and on the environment.

We need to recognize
that the food waste and loss

also represents waste of resources
used in the production.

Like in my case,
if I lose apples and the wheat,

then I also lose the resources
I used in the production

of these apples and the wheat,

like energy, water, land, input.

So, irrespective of the economic
development of the country,

the food waste and loss
should be kept to a minimum.

We are losing food
across the food supply chain,

starting from egg production
to the consumption stage.

In the field

because of improper harvest timing,

poor machinery,

mechanical damage;

in the post handling
and the storage stage

because of inappropriate
storage conditions,

poor temperature control;

in the processing stage
because of mechanical damage,

during packaging and processing;

in the groceries and markets,
because of unsold food,

outdated food,

poor storage conditions;

and in our homes.

Was it because of wrong
shopping behaviour?

Plate waste?

And again some poor storage?

In fact I'd like to mention here

that the loss is measured for the products

that are directed to human consumption.

Though sometimes, people,
especially in rural areas, argue that:

"We don't waste anything,
we don't trash anything.

We just feed to our cows and pigs."

It's kind of an expensive food
for the cows, right?

I wonder if they ask the cows
what to buy for the dinner.

(Laughter)

As to asking,

we did a survey on food waste
and loss in Armenia

on several selected commodities,

and we got shocking results.

In fact, the methodology is based

on Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations,

and all allocation and the conversion
factors have been considered.

Here's what we have.

About 30% of the wheat available
for human consumption in Armenia

gets wasted or lost every year.

This is about 129,000 tons.

The monetary value
of that would be 32 million dollars.

And this is in a country
where wheat is a strategic crop,

very important for food security.

We are a net importer of wheat.

We are importing about 60%
of the total wheat we need in the country.

If we just add these three numbers
and convert to money,

it would be 40 billion drams.

Our statistics state

that in order to eliminate poverty
from our country,

we need about 84 billion drams.

We are throwing away, just in the case
of these three commodities,

about 40 billion drams.

Where exactly we trash the food?

It depends on each commodity.

In the case of potato,

the most of it happens
during the production stage,

mostly due to mechanical damage
in the harvest time,

and also some in the storage
because of the poor condition.

And it happened to myself.

Couple of years ago,
I rented a cold storage facility

to keep my apples for the New Year,

as many farmers do,

and I lost 30% of it.

It was about 1.5 tons, that time.

This was because of poor
temperature control,

there was no proper disinfection done,

poor boxing.

Overall it was poor storage facility.

And many farmers still face such problems.

In the case of wheat,

about 26% of the loss
happens during the production.

And these last two numbers, like 22, 15,

which is the later stage of supply chain,

37% of wheat or bread and pastry,

we are losing in our homes
or supermarkets.

The wheat loss, at the farm level only,
equals to nine million dollars.

Or in other terms,

we can buy 90 brand new
high technology combine harvesters.

It's kind of ridiculous, right?

From one side,

because of mechanical damage
due to poor machinery,

we are throwing away
90 brand new combine harvesters

every year.

In fact, in Armenia
we have 1,400 harvesters.

According to statistics,

about 83% of them are operational.

But how operational are they?

It's a big question.

I remember back in the mid 90s

when I was studying
at the Economics University -

I see a lot of young people,

I'm sure you've studied depreciation.

Yes?

I studied physical depreciation,
financial depreciation,

accounting depreciation
and - a kind of a funny term -

moral depreciation.

Have you heard of a moral depreciation?

A kind of a Soviet term, right?

But I didn't realize that
until in Canada, a couple of years later,

I saw a combine harvester
working in the field without a driver,

through a GPS control satellite,
just the high-tech stuff.

Then I realized: compared to this machine,

our machines will be morally depreciated.

What should an Armenian farmer do,
or what the farmer is doing,

when a physically and morally
depreciated machine,

like this one,

is trying to harvest
the food of the farmer?

He is praying.

(Laughter)

Because you never know
what will happen to that machine

when the harvest is over.

But one thing is certain:

Until the harvest is over,
farmers look as tired as the machine.

What to do?

Let's act just as Pavle,
from the movie, suggests:

Recognize, calculate and prevent.

Recognize the fact

that we are wasting and losing food.

We need to make people
aware of this very important issue.

Calculate the amount lost.

As Peter Drucker said:

"If you don't measure,
you are not able to manage."

And prevent.

Of course, I'm not saying that we need
to jail everyone - as Pavle says.

But we can educate the farmer,

we can invest in resource
sufficient technologies,

we can invest in new machinery,

we can build modern enough
cold storage facilities for our farmers.

Or simply change our behavior.

Gnel Ghazaryan, a live stock farmer
in Arpi village of Vayots Dzor,

already changed his livestock management
behavior of the farming practices.

He's transporting all his animals
to the mountainous pastures

using trucks - like Pavle suggested -

and he saved, last year,
four tons of animal live weight.

After this study,

I also completely changed
my food-purchasing behavior.

I don't think my wife is happy about that.

I'm now acting as a food guard in my home.

I stopped purchases
of bulk quantities of food.

I'm now doing more frequent
purchases in less quantity,

paying attention
to the storage conditions, etc.

The results are visible
in our family budget.

If some people can change behavior,

why can't others do the same?

If we all change our behavior,
collectively as a country,

if our development people
and policy makers

pay more attention
to food waste and losses

and the prevention of that mechanism,

the results will be visible
in our country budget.

And pretty soon, we'll be able
to eliminate poverty from our country.

So, go home and, please, save food.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)