Food-borne illnesses cost $110 B per year in mid-income countries

A new World Bank study finds that the impact of unsafe food costs low- and middleincome economies about $110 billion in lost productivity and medical costs per year.

It argues that a large proportion of these costs can be avoided through forwardlooking preventative measures which will improve how food is produced, handled and prepared from farm to fork.

Reducing the costs and better managing the risks of unsafe food will contribute significantly to the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals, especially those related to poverty, hunger, and well-being.

According to estimates from the World Health Organization, foodborne diseases caused some 600 million illnesses and 420,000 premature deaths in 2010. This global burden of foodborne disease is unequally distributed.

Low- and middle-income countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa account for 41 percent of the global population yet 53 percent of all foodborne illness and 75 percent of related deaths.

Unsafe food threatens young children the most: although children under five are only nine percent of the world’s population, they suffer almost 40 percent of food-borne diseases and 30 percent of deaths related to unsafe food.

The Safe Food Imperative: Accelerating Progress in Low- and

Middle-Income Countries translates these grim statistics into economic terms, using 2016 income data, to focus government attention on the need for stepped-up investment, regulatory reform and measures to promote behavior change.

The total productivity loss associated with food-borne disease in low- and middle-income countries is estimated by the World Bank at $95.2 billion a year. The cost of treatment of food-borne illnesses is estimated at $15 billion annually.

Although more difficult to quantify in aggregate, the economic costs of unsafe food take many additional forms, including losses of farm and company sales; reduced trade revenues; consumer avoidance of more perishable, high nutrient foods; food waste, and others.

“Food safety receives relatively little policy attention and is under-resourced. Action is normally reactive – to major foodborne disease outbreaks or trade interruptions – rather than preventative,” said Juergen Voegele, senior director of the Food and Agriculture Global Practice at the World Bank.

“By focusing on domestic food safety more deliberately, countries can strengthen the competitiveness of their farmers and food industries and develop their human capital. After all, safe food is essential to fuel a healthy, educated and resilient workforce,” he said.

For many low and middleincome countries, rapid demographic, dietary and other changes are contributing to wider exposure of populations to foodborne hazards, stretching if not overwhelming prevailing capacities to manage these.

“Governments in low- and middle-income countries not only need to invest more in food safety but also invest more smartly,” said Steven Jaffee, lead agriculture economist at the World Bank and co-author of the report.

“This means investing in the foundational knowledge, human resources and infrastructure for food safety systems; realizing synergies among investments in food safety, human health and environmental protection; and using public investment to leverage private investment,” Jaffee added.

The report supports a paradigm shift in approaches to food safety regulation. While the traditional model centers on enforcement through product testing and food facility inspections – and the application of legal and financial penalties for infractions – greater emphasis is needed on providing information and other resources to motivate and assist a variety of stakeholders to comply with food safety regulation.