Reducing post-harvest food losses as a pathway towards net-zero agriculture: socioeconomic and environmental insights from FABLE modeling

Abstract The agricultural sector contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions while facing pressures to meet nutritional needs of the growing population. Reducing post-harvest food losses represents an underappreciated path to achieving net-zero emissions without requiring radical changes in production systems. In this study, the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy (FABLE) Calculator simulates post-harvest loss (PHL) reduction scenarios, assessing their socioeconomic and environmental impacts. We model five pathways: a business-as-usual pathway entitled Current Trends, two scenarios with 25% and 50% PHL reductions, and two National Commitments pathways, combining PHL reduction with other policies. As differences between the 25% and 50% reduction pathways were limited across the main outcome variables, we focus the main discussion on the 25% pathways as the more realistic policy benchmark. Results show that reducing PHL alone reduces gross production requirements and production costs by increasing supply chain efficiency. However, only the NC-25% pathway achieves greater cost savings and emission reductions, underscoring the value of combining supply- and demand-side interventions. Ultimately, this study underscores that reducing post-harvest losses is linked to achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (henceforth SDGs) and is essential for transitioning to more sustainable agri-food systems.