Dr. Banarsi Lal
Every year World Food Day is celebrated on 16th of October across the globe to highlight the millions of people who cannot afford a healthy and nutritious diet. The theme for 2022 is Leave no One Behind. This year the World Food Day is marked in a year with multiple global challenges such as climate change, conflicts, COVID-19 pandemic etc. This day is led by The Food and Agriculture Organisation.
This day is celebrated in remembrance of the day when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Organization (UNO) was founded in 1945.
The primary objective to celebrate this day is to tackle the global hunger and strive to eradicate hunger across the globe.
This day is celebrated by various organisations concerned with the food security with full enthusiasm and people commit together to eliminate hunger and poverty from society.
This day reminds us that we should take action for the eradication of hunger and poverty.
World Food Day was established by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) member countries at the Organization’s 20th General Conference in 1979.The idea of celebration of World Food Day was given by Dr. Pal Romany, the then the Minister of Hungary for Agriculture and Food.
On this day awareness on eradication of hunger and poverty from the society is created among the people.
The reasons behind hunger and poverty are acknowledged.
The celebration of this day helps in increasing awareness on the effective agriculture and food policies to mitigate the food problem.
This day is also celebrated as the food engineers’ day. On this day several organisations guide the people about the use of safe and healthy food and avoid the fast food.
As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit countries across the globe, the World Food Day calls for the global solidarity to help the most vulnerable people recover and make food systems more sustainable.
India is at first rank in milk production and second in fruits and vegetables after China in the world.
But India is the world’s biggest waster of food and a high proportion of the food that India produces never reaches to the consumers.
Food is wasted from the point of production to the final consumption. The food wastage represents wastage of various resources used in production such as soil, water, seed, fertilizers, labour etc. Food wastage has various socio-economic and environmental impacts.
Food is very scarce for the many poor people but luxury for many rich people.
A good amount of wasted food can be fed to many hungry people. About 14 per cent of India’s population is undernourished. Child malnutrition is a chronic and longstanding problem in India.
The bane of child and maternal malnutrition is responsible for 15 per cent of India’s total disease burden.37.4 per cent of Indian children are stunted and 21 Per cent are wasted. Stunted children are those who have a low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition. The crisis of child malnutrition in India has often been attributed to historical antecedents such as poverty, inequality and food shortage.
India launched the POSHAN Abhiyan, a flagship national nutrition mission to improve the nutrition among the children, pregnant women and lactating mothers in 2017.
Poshan Abhiyan aims to reduce the malnutrition among the children by facilitating inter-departmental convergence, real-time monitoring, intensified health and nutrition services for the first 1000 days.
Children malnutrition in India is a complex problem that needs a systematic overhaul of the public administration and service delivery system.
Some innovative interventions are needed to address this issue.
Between 33-50 per cent of all food produced globally is never eaten and the value of this wasted food is worth over $ 1 trillion.1 person out of 9 on the planet are malnourished or starved.
Each of them can be fed sufficiently if we can avoid the wastage of food.
With the wastage of food various inputs and natural resources are also wasted. For example, 25 per cent of water is wasted even as millions of people still don’t have access to drinking water and 300 million barrels of oil is also wasted to produce the wasted food. Moreover, manpower and electricity are also wasted.
Food wastage also causes land degradation by 45 per cent due to deforestation, unsustainable farming practices; excessive ground water extraction etc. Food wastage is the national economic loss. According to the sources, India loses around 58,000 crores due to food wastage annually.
Food decay also causes emission of harmful gases. For instance, decaying of paddy causes methane production.
Food wastage has a major impact on the climate change.
Food wastage should be avoided in order to provide the food to the poor people.
The initiatives like India Food Banking Network are assisting to provide the food to the poor people.
There is a need to play the pivotal role in the prevention of food wastage in India.
A proper strategy should be framed at the national level so that the surplus of food can become an advantage for the poor people.
Hunger and food wastage are the two sides of the same coin. The cycle of food cannot be broken without channelizing the wastage of food. By preventing the wastage of food we can do justice with the hungry people, our economy and planet Earth.
We need to plan out our meal and should purchase the food items which we actually need during the week. About 20 per cent food items purchased in the urban areas are thrown away.
A list of family weekly consumption should be prepared. One should have the clear cut idea how much one buys and how much one consumes.
The food at home should be cooked in such a way that there is no excess. To cook the extra food to keep in the refrigerator is not a healthy practice. Items should be purchased according to their shelf life. Vegetables should be cooked on priority basis because they are perishable in nature. Canned and bottled food should be consumed before the expiry dates. Spoiled food can be used for the compost making.
Vigilance should be kept on canteens, hotels, NGOs etc. who deal with the food. If 40 per cent of food is left to rot then India will be unable to provide enough food to the increasing population. A comprehensive strategy should be framed by involving the civil society and private sectors to overcome this grave problem. By managing this gigantic issue we can handle social, economic and environmental ill-effects.
(The writer is Sr. Scientist & Head of KVK, Reasi SKUAST-J).
