Global food loss and waste annually generate 4.4 gigatonnes of C02, equivalent or about eight per cent of the total greenhouse gas emission. This puts the contribution of food wastage emissions to global warming at par with global road transport emissions
The spectre of food shortage has always been a growing threat globally, especially in the face of burgeoning population levels. The food wastage issue is a universal problem, but India suffers due to it on an acute basis. According to a report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, every third malnourished child is an Indian. Yet, tonnes of food are wasted every day. In fact, the amount of food going waste in India is as much food as the whole of the United Kingdom consumes.
A study by a team from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore, surveyed 75 of Bangalore’s wedding halls over six months and recorded a wastage of over 943 tonnes of good quality food — which is enough food to feed 2.6 crore people a regular Indian meal.
In addition to weddings and banquets, restaurants, hotels and the transportation industry such as airlines, are also contributing immensely to food wastage. Add to this, about 40 per cent of the food produced in India never reaches the hungry, primarily due to glitches in the supply system — be it inefficient transportation or shabby storage facilities. In fact, post harvest losses in India are nearly to the tune of one-lakh crore rupees, amounting to almost 10 per cent of the 2017-18 Budget allocations to the agriculture sector. The farming sector is the largest source of livelihood in India, having nearly 80 per cent small and marginal farmers. The agri-sector is tasked with feeding the ever-growing population in India, and due to better farming technologies, India’s food grain production has kept steady pace with its population.
The total foodgrain production during 2015-16 was estimated at 252.23 million tonnes, five times higher compared to 50 million tonnes in 1950-51. However, adequate food production is not sufficient to ensure food security as not all food produced is consumed and a significant portion is wasted instead. A FAO report estimates that saving one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world, of which the highest number or nearly 194.6 million are in India.
To address this problem of food loss and waste globally, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 aims to halve the per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses. India too must concentrate first on the post-harvest losses in order to prevent and stem food wastage.
As a part of the efforts to bring down food wastage, Indian authorities must first perfect the farm to consumer supply system. A faulty supply chain not only causes food wastage and food inflation but also results in the emission of methane, a greenhouse gas, from the landfills. It has been also observed that food waste and loss occurs differently in developing and developed countries. In developing countries, food waste and loss occurs at early stages of the food value chain.
This can be associated with lack of support to farmers, poor and non-scientific harvesting techniques, weak infrastructure, storage, cooling and transport facilities. On the other hand, in developed countries, food waste and loss occurs largely at retail and consumer stages. Keeping this in view, India must strengthen the primary stages of its food value chain.
This is also evident in the study undertaken by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which highlighted that the underlying cause of post-harvest loss in the country is the lack of infrastructure for short-term storage, particularly at the farm level, as well as the lack of intermediate processing in the production catchments. The study estimated that an annual value of harvest and post-harvest losses of major agricultural produces at the national level was nearly Rs 92,000 crore. This staggering wastage needs to be controlled effectively by the Government.
The authorities must also increase the awareness of the general public regarding the costs of food wastage; this will not only ensure the re-circulation of food amongst the needy but also encourage responsible consumption. In addition to these measures, companies must also be actively encouraged to include food re-circulation in their corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Besides this, commercial food outlets must have periodic and mandatory food audits. The outlets must also have in-house food regulatory inspectors; this will check the wastage of food.
India can also follow some successful global examples. For instance, the United Kingdom has a food waste supermarket that sells food discarded by supermarkets and food businesses, on a pay-as-you-feel basis. The supermarket has become a lifeline for several families and is part of a larger project to channelize food wastage away from landfills and to fight hunger. India can replicate this concept on a mass scale across the country. This will not only address hunger issues for countless families but also address wastage of food.
Global food loss and waste annually generate 4.4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (C02), equivalent or about eight per cent of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This puts the contribution of food wastage emissions to global warming at par with global road transport emissions. Now that’s food for thought.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)