| Abstract: The loss and waste of vegetables not only cause huge economic losses, but also have many negative impacts on the environment. In order to reduce the losses and waste of the whole vegetable industrial chain and assist in the sustainable development of the food system, the losses and waste in the production, postproduction processing, storage, processing, circulation, consumption and other links of vegetables were sorted out. The characteristics of vegetable losses and waste of the whole industrial chain were summarized, including high losses and waste rates in the entire industry chain, severe losses in post-production processing, and huge potential for loss reduction. The main causes of vegetable losses and waste were analyzed, including natural disaster, insufficient infrastructure, asymmetric information of supply and demand, non-standard operations, consumer preference and unreasonable consumption behaviors. The impact of vegetable losses and waste on resources and the environment were elaborated. On the basis of elaborating on the main measures currently adopted to reduce losses and waste in China, management strategies to promote sustainable development of the
entire industry chain were proposed, including the joint efforts of multiple parties to formulate action plans to reduce losses, strengthening supervision to promote the construction of loss reduction standards of the whole vegetable industrial chain, conducting pilot projects and summarizing experience to demonstrate and promote
and strengthening education to guide healthy consumption. |