A leader of the House of Representatives has batted for the enactment of a bill that will lessen food waste.
Party-list Rep. Sharon Garin of AAMBIS-OWA, chairman of the House Committee on Economic Affairs pushed for the passage of House Bill 3370, or the Food Waste Reduction Act, that aims to reduce the country’s food waste through donations and waste recycling.
Garin made the statement following the recently published 2019 State of Food and Agriculture Report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Echoing the results of the report, Garin underscored how food waste reduction could spur economic growth and improve agricultural production. However, the report also admits that it will come with a cost.
To make it happen, Garin acknowledged the pivotal role of public-private partnership investments. “The role of Congress now is to create an environment for private actors that will encourage them to invest in the effective implementation of food waste management and reduction,” Garin said.
House Bill 3370 calls for the mandatory donation of edible food surplus for charitable purposes and the creation of food banks.
Upon its enactment, owners of covered establishments such as restaurants, cafés, diners, fast food chains, or hotels; supermarkets with at least 500 square meters of selling space; and culinary schools will be required to segregate their edible and inedible food surplus.
The food surplus shall then undergo inspection of the LGU based on the standards to be set by the NNC and FDA. Only upon the certification of edible food surplus can it be donated to accredited food banks and distributed among food-insecure Filipinos.
The bill also seeks to create a system that will address the problem of food wastage in the country through a proposed education-information-communication campaign, with a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach. Maricel V. Cruz
“We remain optimistic that provisions that can help bolster economic growth can still be added to this bill,” Garin said.
The bill is in line with number two and twelve of the Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to eliminate hunger and foster responsible consumption and production, respectively. The Special Food Committee on Food Security held its first meeting on bills related to Food Waste Reduction last December 2019.