Cutting Food Waste USDA issued a national strategy yesterday that aims to cut food waste by 50 percent by 2030. According to the agency, food waste in the U.S. involves a third of the supply. There are many reasons why this is concerning and USDA has proposed many remediation steps along the supply chain. One concept is that food is also energy. It converts to harmful methane in municipal solid waste dumps, or it can be captured as energy on the farm, or as compost at the household level. Used cooking oil has gone from a waste product to carrying more value than unused oil in the renewable energy market. But over-incentivizing any one use leads to distortions and deceptions. And most of what the government has proposed is voluntary, so res...