As much as 40% of India?s fruits and vegetables and roughly 22% of wheat are lost annually due to poor cold storage facilities and infrastructural bottlenecks, according to a study done by a UK-based institute. A whopping 1.2-2 billion tonne of food items, or 30-50% of total production, is lost each year, said the report titled ?Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not? by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
While any wastage can potentially drive up food prices, they also pressure resources such as land and water due to a growing demand for food due to burgeoning population.
?The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect food stuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through sales promotion offers,? said Tim Fox, the head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
??This is food that could be used to feed the world?s growing population ? as well as the nearly one billion people in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food,?? he added.
India?s unacceptably high level of child malnutrition, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has termed a national shame, and a poor show in the global hunger index have put pressure on the government to work towards maximising farm productivity and improving supplies.
Despite the economy tripling in size between 1990 and 2005 to become Asia?s third largest, 42% of children under five years are underweight ? nearly double the rate of sub-Saharan Africa, showed the 2011 Hunger and Malnutrition survey conducted by Nandi Foundation.
With the United Nations forecasting an additional three billion people on earth by the end of the century, judicious use of resources and handling the problems of wastages are the need of the hour.
Losses of rice in Southeast Asian nations can range from 37% to 80% of production, depending on the stage of development, totalling around 180 million tonne a year, the report said.
Moreover, 30-50% of food purchased by consumers is thrown away at home in developed nations.
Similarly, the demand for water to produce food items is expected to rise to 10?13 trillion cubic meters a year by 2050, 2.5 to 3.5 times than the total human use of fresh water now and could lead to dangerous water shortages across the globe, report said. About 550 billion cubic meters of water is wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer, the report said.
There is the potential to provide 60-100% more food by eliminating losses and wastages while freeing up land, energy and water resources, the report said.