More than half of food produce goes to waste in India
The Real Junk Food Project in England has really kickstarted a food revolution with a difference in the country. There volunteers with the organization ‘intercept’ food that is just past its sell by date and ensure that is doesn’t just get cast away in a bin. The food makes it to the tables of cafes that numbered just one in 2013 but today has over 120 affiliated cafes worldwide and growing. Till date, over 200 million tonnes of food have been intercepted.
Over the past decade or so, people have been adopting varied lifestyles. Expectations have become higher, in terms of quality and freshness. Anything that doesn’t fall within those standards is discarded or passed down the ladder to the less fortunate. Then there’s also the matter of genetically modified food - Fruit and vegetables that don’t have seeds, which are brighter in colour than organic produce, meats are filled with chemicals, from animals injected with steroids. All this has also contributed to a different idea of top quality.
According to the United Nations, over 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted every year. This is perhaps not the real figure, judging by the lack of clear systems in third world countries to track wastage. Even if this figure was spot on, the situation is quite alarming and puts the focus on better ways to deal with an issue that doesn’t get too much coverage. In India, the amount of food wastage is equally astounding. The last figures came out in 2014, where it was made known that around 70 percent of fruit and vegetable output is wasted, as well as 4 percent of meat. On an average, taking into consideration grain, fruit, vegetables and wheat, around 40 percent of food in India goes to waste. The fact that one quarter of the world’s undernourished people live in India makes this figure even more profound. What also makes matters worse, was if the wasted food was saved, prices of milk, fruit and vegetables would drop drastically, by atleast 35-50 percent.
The biggest causes for this are storage and transport. India loses 21 million tonnes of grain every year to rot and pests. This figure is around the annual output of a country like Australia. To combat this, India needs better infrastructure, upgraded cold storage centers and refrigerated trucks. It also need a massive investment into the sector, as well as into the Food Corporation of India (FCI). With the FCI, which was started to work on countrywide distribution, the implementation of price support systems and to maintain buffer stocks. But this hasn’t played out the way it should have. The government is working on increasing food production but that won’t work either if half goes to waste.
In Australia, organisations such as OzHarvest and REAP redistribute food that would otherwise go to waste, on similar lines to what is happening in England with the Real Junk Food Project. Perhaps it’s time for something to happen here too. India produces over 250 million tonnes of food every year. If food wasted amounts to 40 percent, that means that over 100 tonnes will go to waste this year. That figure is certainly food for thought.
