ONLY 19 per cent of farmers believe they are paid a fair price for their produce by commercial buyers.
What's more, 68pc of fruit and vegetable rejection from commercial buyers is due to appearance.
They are just some of the points extracted from a report commissioned by Sydney-based social enterprise, Good & Fugly.
The company works with Australian farmers to sell excess and cosmetically challenged produce to consumers.
Good & Fugly produced the research report, Farm To Supermarket Food Waste Report 2023, is based on a study conducted by Fifth Quadrant with 57 farmers.
The research consisted of a five minute online survey of decision makers within Australian farms between July and August last year.
The report surveyed both large farmers ($500k+) and smaller farmers ( $500k).
It found, compared to a year ago, 42pc of small farmers have reported lower profits with rising production costs, labour issues and weather conditions their main concerns.
Drawing out the waste angle, the survey found a quarter (25pc) of small farmers are concerned about produce being rejected by supermarkets, while one in three (32pc) larger farmers also considered it as a concern, ranking it above cashflow issues and lack of control over pricing.
Other survey points included:
- 56pc agree perfectly good produce is rejected due to cosmetic issues and the same number think making better use of imperfect produce is important to improve sustainability in the agricultural sector.
- 68pc of fruit and vegetable rejection from commercial buyers was due to appearance.
- 51pc of farmers screen out good produce because they don't think it will be accepted by commercial buyers.
- 20pc of large farmers are losing more than 30pc of what they grow because they expect it to be rejected by supermarkets because of its appearance or size.
- 23pc of farmers report supermarkets expect them to hand over imperfect produce for free. This increases to 32pc for larger farmers.
- 19pc of farmers believe they are paid a fair price for their produce by commercial buyers.
- 12pc reported an annual loss of $50,000 or more as a result of rejected produce.
- 40pc of large farmers say supermarkets will reject a whole pallet over one "bad apple".
Good & Fugly co-founder, Richard Tourino, said the statistics around food waste in Australia, and across the globe, are staggering.
"Globally 1 billion tonnes of food produced for humans is wasted each year," Mr Tourino said.
"This wastage produces 8pc of global greenhouse gas emissions and 25pc of all vegetables produced don't leave the farm.
"It's the food waste lost between farm and supermarket that we wanted to unpack with this report.
"We're hoping as the years go on, we see some of the numbers shift as attitudes towards the aesthetics of fruit and vegetables change.
"But for now, we've still got a long way to go."
The survey found 37pc of farmers thought the rejected produce could be sold to alternate buyers but this was often at a discount.
It said 32pc of rejected produce is repurposed into other products such as marmalade and soaps.
"We can see through these answers that, simply put, there's a lot of produce that is being rejected by supermarkets purely for the way it looks and its dramatically impacting farmers' profits," Mr Tourino said.
"Collectively, if we look at the loss of profits from farmers in the report due to rejected produce and average it out across Australia's 15,000 farmers, these losses equate to a total of $27.9 million, or roughly 13.95 million kilos of fruit and vegetables, being lost annually in Australia."
"We're urging supermarket giants to reconsider how they screen their produce and to normalise the sale of quirky looking fruits and veggies. It will be better for the environment, for farmers, and for Aussie consumers' wallets."
- The Farm To Supermarket Food Waste Report 2023 is available for download via HERE.
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