A Nation could eat off the food we waste. A Serious Concern For National Food security

     By; Shailesh Saxena

It is a conundrum of our time that deprivation exists alongside this wasteful culture and what we do about it.  Older generations laid much - store by the adage 'Waste Not, Want Not'.  They understood the seasonal and cyclical nature of abundance and need.  In a modern society, where everything is available, all year round and at every price point, new insight is required as to how we can live within the capacity of our planet in terms of the materials we consume and the waste we must manage.   It is easy to preach to people that our way of life is unsustainable.  It is harder to convince them to take action. In a world of rising population, increasing the cost of food, concerns about inequality and growing food insecurity, food waste is one of the greatest challenges of our time with 30% (1.3 billion tonnes) of food produced being wasted each year.

• Food waste is also responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet's atmosphere per year. If food waste was a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally after China and the US.
• The water footprint of food waste is equivalent to three times the volume of Lake Geneva.
• The value of food wasted each year is $940 billion.

This belief is also supported by the UN, which has decided that the food waste reduction target proposed by the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals shall be part of the post-2015 development agenda. And, as food waste occurs all along the food chain from farm to fork, we want to play our part to tackle this issue on a systemic basis.

The wastage stands at approximately 67 million tonnes every year – a number higher than the national food output of countries like Britain The statistics paint a gloomy picture – the value of food lost amounts to Rs 92,000 crore, nearly two-thirds of what the government spends under the National Food Security Programme to feed 600 million poor Indians with subsidized rations. About one million tonnes of onions never reach the markets as they vanish on their way from farms to markets, just like 2.2 million tonnes of tomatoes. More than 5 million eggs crack or rot due to the unavailability of cold storage facilities.

It is estimated more than 230 cubic kilometers of fresh water, enough to provide drinking water to 10 crore people a year, goes into producing food items that are ultimately wasted. China is second with 140 cubic km and Pakistan is third with 55 cubic km.

Meat accounts for just four percent of the food wastage but contributes 20% to the economic cost of the wastage. Wastage of vegetables and fruits is 70% of the total produce, but it translated into only 40% of the economic losses.

“We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go waste or be lost because of inappropriate practices when 870 million people go hungry every day,

Crop production is dictated by Nature, but post-production operations play an important role in creating a stable food supply. It is estimated that about 25.0 million tons of wheat are lost globally during postharvest stages (including storage and post-production. About 46 percent of this loss is recorded in developing countries.( In Asia wheat, rice, and maize are the major food grains contributing over 90 percent )

The world is losing 25 to 33 percent of the food it produces – nearly 4 billion metric tons - according to estimates from the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Association (FAO), and the World Resources Institute. Most of the wastage takes place at the consumption stage (35 percent), followed by production and handling, and storage (24 percent). Post-harvest losses in India amount to 12 to 16 million metric tons of food grains out of which total wheat losses during post-harvest is about  5.51 million tons.

Each year, an amount that the World Bank estimates could feed one-third of India's poor. The monetary value of these losses amounts to more than Rs. 50,000 crores per year 

Indian waste as much food as the whole of the United Kingdom consumes – a statistic that may not so much indicative of our love of surfeit, as it is of our population. Still, food wastage is an alarming issue in India. Our street garbage bins, and landfills have sufficient proof to prove it.

Weddings, canteens, hotels, social and family functions, and households spew out so much food.  According to the United Nations Development Programme, up to 40% of the food produced in India is wasted. About 21 million tons of wheat is wasted in India and 50% of all food across the world meets the same fate and never reaches the needy. In fact, according to the agriculture ministry, Rs. 92,000 crore worth of food produced is wasted every year in the country. India ranks 63 among 88 countries in the Global Hunger Index. Wastage of food is not indicative of only hunger or pollution, but also many economic problems in the economy, such as inflation. Only government policies are not responsible for the problems we are facing today, but our culture and traditions are also playing a lead role in this drama. In India, the bigger the wedding, the larger the party and the more colossal the waste.

Here’s what one can do on a more personal level to contain the food wastage:

• Plan out your meal and make your shopping list to determine what you actually need for the week. About 20% of what we buy in urban India ends up being thrown away.
• Buy in quantities you can realistically use. Avoid impulse buys.
• If you cook at home, make sure you cook keeping in mind there is no excess.
• • Select according to their shelf life. Use the green vegetables first. Don’t throw out fruits and veggies with ‘aesthetic only’ blemishes. Use canned and bottled food before expiry dates.
  • Reuse the refrigerated leftovers (if any) for the very next meal.
  • Even if food gets spoilt then compost it.
  • If you work in an office that has a canteen, check with them on how they manage excess food. Cooked food, especially since it has a low shelf life needs to be managed better and faster. Check with NGOs who offer to transport excess food to the needy.
  • If you host a family get-together either at home, a marriage hall, or throw a party at a hotel, make sure you plan for the food to be transported to a place like an orphanage or an old age shelter.
  • Make finishing your plate a habit. Try to inculcate it further as much as possible.

Conclusion; overall, it may be concluded that food security in India can be achieved by paying higher attention to issues that are more or less in our control such as crop diversification, Control of post-harvest losses and food wastage, more efficient water use, and improved soil management practices, together with the development of drought-resistant crops can help reduce some of the negative impacts.Some measures that the government needs to take include containing wastage in transportation, improving storage facilities (the cold storage chain is 50 percent 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.