Food wastage contributes significantly to global issues like hunger, resource depletion, and environmental damage. Effective food waste management is crucial to alleviate the pressure on land and reduce food scarcity.
The ongoing issue of food waste, from post-harvest to household levels, contributes significantly to global hunger and environmental degradation. Reducing food waste can ease pressure on natural resources, curb overproduction, and limit ecosystem damage.
Back in 2015, Late Ratan Naval Tata tweeted about an incident involving him along with his colleagues in Germany. That episode of their life made them pay a 50 Euro fine for the crime of leaving one-third of the food served to them in a German restaurant.
Excerpts of the words of his gained wisdom from the happening, he shared on his social handle then: WE REALLY NEED TO REFLECT ON THIS. We are from a country which is not very rich in resources. To save face, we order food in large quantity and also waste food when we give others a treat.
At the end he wrote: VERY TRUE- ‘MONEY IS YOURS BUT RESOURCES BELONG TO THE SOCIETY”.
During Durga Puja every year with an intention to draw more devotees and spectators, the different committees try to beat each other up by making attractive and themed pandals. A Kolkatta’s pandal that stood out with its theme of ‘don’t waste food, donate’. The message is not just layered and encompasses several issues like hunger, malnutrition and malnourishment.
The several reasons for forwarding unrest in the world has resulted in a constant ascent of hunger since the past three years. Hunger is not directly related to food wastage. Neither is malnutrition and malnourishment to food wastage. But the influence of food wastage percentage on them is undeniable. And so is upon the pressure on land and soil to give more produce.
Looking at the seriousness of the issue, a venture called the Food Waste Index was launched to measure food waste at retail and consumer level (commercial and household involvement) in 2021. The Food Waste Index Report is a joint initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) and the Waste and Resources Action Programme(WRAP), a non-profit organization based in the UK, to highlight the gross scale of the global food waste guide on reducing the same. Surprisingly household food waste has the largest percentage of the total happening in the entire world. Each person on average wastes 79 kg of food annually.
Food wastage begins in the interim period from post-harvest to traveling for the retail shops. Then it gains momentum at the retail, at the commercial outlets i.e. the retail and food service begin the process of food waste. This percentage depends and varies from one day to another. The weekends, holidays, and family or official functions result in packed restaurants and hotels. While other days when the footfalls are average or below average the less demand gives rise to cooked and unused food stocks.
In the world the largest number of people facing hunger are from the African continent. Likewise, the largest amount of food waste is seen in hotter countries due to quick food decay, lack of food cold storages and the larger amount of inedible parts of food.
Food waste percentage is beyond the perimeters of the average per capita household food waste. It is witnessed to be approximately similar across high-income, upper middle and lower-middle income countries. The household waste is approximately similar in the varying per-capita income households. If the middle class is taken into consideration then the urban families have comparatively a greater share then rural families. This might be due to the availability of options for serving the leftover food to pets, stray animals, the reared cattle or the open area availability for turning the food waste to household organic compost.
The appalling food waste statistics not only can help reduce the aggregate of hunger-stricken people but also give the cultivable land a fractional relief from the pressure of over-production. Further this will lead to less use of synthetic fertilizer. This might help slow down both the process and necessity of turning the forest land to farmland. These steps will help manage the irreversible damage of ecosystem and land resources.
Food waste management might not churn out direct solutions to food deficit leading to global issues like hunger, malnutrition and malnourishment but it certainly has its own weightage to deal with them along with climate crisis and soil pollution.
