The outrage against food waste strikes a chord with the times. It is indeed more than disturbing that there are still hungry people in this world while others throw away food. However, it is important that the fight against food waste does not stop at your own fridge. It starts in agriculture - in every field. The Swiss Society for Phytomedicine is concerned with maintaining and improving the health of plants. In fact, the protection of agriculturally utilised plants is a decisive factor when it comes to avoiding crop losses. The development of plant protection products also serves this purpose.

If we can only see as far as the spoilt yoghurt in the fridge, we lose sight of the full scale of the problem. A considerable proportion of the crops grown worldwide are lost to diseases and pests. The global average crop loss is 30 per cent, as a group of researchers from the International Society for Plant Pathology found in a study published in the scientific journal ‘Nature’. Potatoes, soya, wheat and maize suffer losses of around 20 per cent. Pests and plant diseases massively reduce the yield and quality of agricultural production. Worldwide, pests and plant diseases are a major burden and - due to networked commodity flows - also a rapidly spreading threat. One example is the marmorated stink bug, which is now also spreading rapidly in our country.

The benefits of pesticides should also be seen in this context. Effective control of food waste ranges from basic research at universities, to research by industry to identify new active substances, to the careful use of plant protection products in agriculture. Plant protection products reduce food losses in the field. However, they also increase the quality and shelf life of products. What has a longer shelf life is more likely to be used in the kitchen and does not end up unused in the bin. The fight against food waste is not just a question of personal morality, but an expression of a comprehensive ethic that does not simply accept food losses in agriculture.

Global warming leads to more pest pressure and plant diseases. This is emphasised by another study by international scientists on the effect of climate change on the spread of pests. Global agriculture needs answers to this. And these answers can only be provided by scientific plant protection. An attitude of denial, as demanded by two popular initiatives in Switzerland in 2021 that were clearly rejected by the population and called for a massive restriction or ban on crop protection, does nothing to combat food waste - on the contrary, it is harmful. After all, the growing world population can ultimately only be fed if we get food waste under control in the field. Of course, this is not a plea against responsible purchasing behaviour. But responsible crop protection and plant health are at the beginning of the chain.