Why is food wastage a problem?

25% of fresh water used to produce food is ultimately wasted, even as millions of people still don’t have access to drinking water. When you calculate the figures in cubic kilometers, this is a bit more than an average river.

·         Even though the world produces enough food to feed twice the world’s present population, food wastage is ironically behind the billions of people who are malnourished. The number of hungry people in India has increased by 65 million more than the population of France. According to a survey by Bhook (an organization working towards reducing hunger) in 2013, 20 crore Indians sleep hungry on any given night. About 7 million children died in 2012 because of hunger/malnutrition.

·         Acres of land are deforested to grow food. Approximately 45% of India’s land is degraded primarily due to deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices, and excessive groundwater extraction to meet the food demand.

·         300 million barrels of oil are used to produce food that is ultimately wasted.

The Minister of Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal seems to have chalked out a roadmap. Yes, a map literally, which shows exactly what fruits and vegetables are grown and where.

She says, “My ministry works as a catalyst. It has the potential for doing a couple of thingswhich are the need of the hour. Firstly, bring down food wastage. Food is being wasted at the harvest point and during transportation. If the same food which is wasted can be processed, it would mean it could either be available in raw form or in bottled form at a price which is affordable to the aam aadmi.”

Food wastage cripples a country’s economy to an extent that most of us are unaware. If food is wasted, there is so much waste of water used in agriculture, manpower and electricity lost in food processing industries and even contributes to  deforestation. Taking all of into consideration, the actual worth of money per year in India from food wastage is estimated at a whopping Rs. 58,000 crore.

Some measures that the government needs to take include containing wastage in transportation, improve storage facilities (the cold storage chain is 50% less than required and that too needs to be brought up to world standards), food processing also needs to be sped up so food is saved and wasted less to feed more.

While you may not be able to reduce food lost during production, you can certainly reduce food at your personal level of food waste. Every step taken in the right direction counts.