ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical economic approach to studying food loss and yields a perspective on the importance of losses and the trade-offs inherent in policies intended to address that loss. It focuses on the produce industry and shows that total food loss can be difficult to justify as an economic problem. The chapter identifies what is commonly referred to as “loss” within a standard supply and demand framework. The idea that available food on the farm should simply be harvested and put into the traditional marketplace presupposes that the costs of recovery are irrelevant. The chapter aims to bridge the emerging branch of literature on food loss at the producer level with the numerous theories of causes. The main limitation posed by analysis is that the forecasted technology-induced solutions to food loss problems may not happen quickly. The chapter utilizes language of economics to distinguish between what economists and non-economists mean by food loss.
