We are wasting enough food to feed Kenya for a year

“Developing nations waste over 1.1 billion tonnes of food every year,” announced the GSMA at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a fortnight ago.The GSMA goes on to say that with the food that could be saved, we could feed a country the size of Kenya for an entire year.  Once you stop to think that this East African nation has a population of 43 million, this observation is indeed sobering.I know, I know. You're wondering why the GSMA - an association that represents the interests of mobile operators around the world - is talking about food wastage. Surely they’ve got other stuff to worry about, and food is somebody else’s problem?  Maybe the FAO, UNDP or the World Bank?  Somebody else’s problem it might be, but the GSMA realises that it represents an industry that could be part of the solution.  Through the use of better logistics and food distribution, the GSMA sees that mobile technology can result in more food getting to more people at the right time, without being wasted or needlessly stockpiled.The "Connected Life" report (PDF Link) estimates that as the potential benefits of fleet telematics gain traction among fleet operators and owners (aided of course by basic awareness programs), food wastage during transport and storage could be reduced by 10–15 percent - the equivalent of 25 million tonnes a year. This much food is sufficient to feed over 40 million people a 2000-calorie diet, every year. A truck using vehicle telematics is expected to save the equivalent of 1 tonne of food a month through increased efficiencies and performance improvements that can be felt across the board.The GSMA makes eight Connected Life statements in its report, showing just how pervasive mobile is going to be in our lives:

1. mHealth could save over 1 million lives in Sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years
2. mHealth could help cut healthcare costs in OECD countries by over 400 billion USD in 2017
3. mEducation could provide 180 million children in developing countries the opportunity to stay in school over the next five years
4. mEducation could help retain 1.8 million students in the education system across developed nations by 2017
5. Fleet telematics could prevent enough food wastage during transport to feed the population of Kenya every year by 2017
6. 1 in 9 lives lost in road accidents could be saved by mobile-enabled in-car emergency call services
7. Smart commute interventions could give back a week’s worth of time every year to every commuter
8. In major cities across the developed world, smart metering could reduce carbon emissions offset by over 1.2 billion trees