Annual Research Report 2020

52 Research in Centre for Teaching, Learning and Program Development (CTLPD) Dr Adesuwa Vanessa Agbedahin Food waste in university spaces The Covid-19 pandemic has been commonly experienced and popularly described as a hunger pandemic both locally and interna- tionally. Little wonder OXFAM called it “the hunger virus”. Shockingly, this pandemic has been characterised by food waste, which may contribute to exacerbating the climate emergency. Actually, food waste is not a new phenomenon. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO) has revealed that for the third year in a row, there has been a rise in world hunger. The number of undernourished people in the world has been on the rise since 2014, reaching an estimated 821 million in 2017. According to the 2016 Global Hunger Index report, hunger has decreased in developing countries by 29% since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Despite this progress, on a global scale, about 795 million people go hungry. Paradoxically, in recent years, approximately 1.3 billion tons of food produced for human consumption has been globally lost and wasted in the food supply chain (FSC) annually. As of 2018, 1.6 billion tons of food is wasted, which is worth about $1.2 trillion annually. Co-author: Komlon Agtedshin