Recent FAO report: blue water footprint of food wastage is 250 km3/yr (~ annual water discharge of Volga river)
Published on by Markus Pahlow, University of Canterbury - Senior Lecturer
FAO report, Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources
The authors say: "Without accounting for greenhouse gas emissions from land use change, the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 Gigatons [billion tons] of CO2 equivalent: as such, food wastage ranks as the third top emitter after the USA and China.
"Globally, the blue water footprint (i.e., the consumption of surface and groundwater resources) of food wastage is about 250 cubic kilometers, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river [in Russia], or three times the volume of [Switzerland's] Lake Geneva.
"Finally, produced but uneaten food vainly occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land; this represents close to 30 percent of the world's agricultural land area."
Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/sep/22/food-waste-worsens-greenhouse-gas-emissions-fao/#ixzz2gIqha2vB