Lost Harvest and Wasted Food 2021

Estimates indicate that one-third of the food produced globally is lost or wasted and never consumed. This course strengthens your insights and skills to reduce food loss and waste (FLW). During the course, we will critically analyse the crop supply chain, look beyond the symptoms of FLW, and design for strategies contribution to a more sustainable food system. We will pay special attention to the drivers of FLW, the business case to reduce it, simple and advanced technologies, and the economic impact of food loss and waste reduction. But also the role and responsibilities of the various stakeholders will be addressed, the difficulty of consumer behavior change, and how to create a conducive policy environment and an actively involved private sector. In this interactive training of lectures, discussions, group work and field trips, you gain insight in all aspects of FLW.

What will you learn?

Upon completion of the course you will:

• Understand the link between primary production, post-harvest management, the supply chain and food security
• Be familiar with alternative uses of food waste
• Have insight into the public and private responsibilities in the supply chain for post-harvest handling and food waste management
• Be able to design solutions for minimising the amount of ‘missing food’, from smallholders to multinational retailers

Course programme in more detail

Estimates indicate that 30-40% of the food produced globally is lost post-harvest or wasted because it is never consumed. Without these losses sufficient food is produced to feed the world population, even when it reaches 9 billion people. Science fiction? Maybe but not completely. In this course we will look at ways to minimise losses, reduce food waste and explore alternative uses. Ultimately this should contribute to food security.

How to register:

For who is this course?

The course is designed for practitioners who have an active interest in this field, like managers, policy makers, specialists and senior technical staff who are professionally involved in the crop supply chain and deal with post-harvest and food waste management. Participants should be proficient in English and have at least a BSc degree or an equivalent academic qualification

To register, please visit the following link.

The Application Procedure

1. Register for the course of your interest by clicking the ‘apply’ button on the webpage of this course. A registration form will open;
2. Fill in the required fields of the registration form. Please note to write your date of birth without a zero (e.g. 1-5-1980 instead of 01-05-1980);
3. Before you submit, check your details on the final page of the registration form;
4. After submitting, you will receive a confirmation email. Make sure to directly click on the link in the email to confirm your registration. Without your confirmation, your registration cannot be processed;
5. If you apply as an OKP or MSP-scholarship candidate, you will receive a registration letter for the scholarship at the beginning of the scholarship cycle.
6. If you apply as a self-funded participant: we will forward your request for acceptance to the course leader. This can take some time as it depends on the coordinators' schedule (1-3 weeks);
7. If you’re accepted into the course programme, we’ll send you an admission letter by e-mail;
8. You receive all required travel documents from us after you are selected for the scholarship (OKP/MSP-scholarship candidates) or when we’ve received your payment (self-funded participant).

Technology Requirements Online Learning

Minimum technical and software requirements for online learning courses are:

• Stable internet connection: required to access the online learning platform and assignments (at least 3G mobile network).
• Hardware requirement: acces to a laptop, smartphone, tablet or a personal computer with webcam and microphone.