Emiliano Lopez Barrera, Ph.D., an agricultural economist with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, led a study examining how household food waste changes as incomes rise, revealing patterns that could inform policy and consumer behavior. Credit: Laura McKenzie/Texas A&M AgriLife

A new study by a Texas A&M AgriLife Research agricultural economist offers fresh insight into a global problem hiding in plain sight: How can we measure household food waste when it is so hard to track consistently?

Emiliano Lopez Barrera, Ph.D., and his co-authors developed a new way to estimate consumer food waste across countries and over time. Their study addresses the long-standing challenge of consistent estimating by using a model-based approach that is less costly than food diaries or direct tracking and flexible enough to be applied with different datasets at different scales, from household surveys to broader country-level analysis.

"Before this, estimates were scattered and often costly.…