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Food Wastage- whose Fault

Food- A four lettered simple word, but not as simple as it seems to be. Understanding it is a very complex
phenomenon. This is the substance without which one cannot leave and to get it he can do all types of wrong or
corrupt activities. Every living being who lives in the world required food. Rich people get food easily, middle class
has to struggle hard to get food whereas poor people sometimes get it otherwise slept empty stomach. It is not
that poor people dont have money to buy food but the problem is that there is no food item left for them to buy.

India every year grew 250 Million tons of food grain and for its consumption it requires 220 or 225 million tons
of food grain. According to this data India is a self sufficient in terms of food grain but still 250 Million people go to
bed hungry, 48% of the fewer than five age children are stunted indirectly half of the countrys children are
malnourished. If India is a self sufficient country then where the actual problem lies? Why people go hungry? Why
children are malnourished? Its main problem lies in Food Wastage. Food is wasted in India by a lot of reasons
among which the most important is lack of Cold storage, poor harvest management, and lack of suitable
infrastructure, processing and packaging, lack of marketing information. Present Cold Storage requirement is 61.3
million tones whereas in India it is 29 or nearly 30 million tons. 30% of fruits and vegetables perish, 1000 tons of
food grain rot in ill equipped warehouse. Other reasons for food wastages are excess amount of food preparation
rather than required amount in weddings, parties etc. Lack of proper care of food material in homes make the
food waste and many more reasons.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations about one third of global food
production is lost or wasted annually. Enormous quantities of food are thrown away every day. This food wastage
is not only a problem of developing countries likes India but developed countries too waste lots of food. In
developed countries consumers are generally encouraged to buy more food than they need and this is considered
as a fashion trend which fails to plan their food purchases properly and too unnecessarily wasting money of
unwanted items. They waste more than 220 million tonnes of food every year. This is the case of developed or rich
countries which may not be a major issue for them. But for a poor country like India food wastage means much
more and his real meaning can be understood by a person who do not get even 2 meals a day.
A new form of food wastage in the recent Food Security Act of UPA Government which promises to give each
and every citizen of India the right to food and poor people will get food on a very low price. This has given a very
set back to Indias economy because this is on the basis of India self sufficiency in food grain, whereas truth is
known by everyone. Other important issues are this is the current case. What will happen after some years
because Population is growing in an unimaginable rate which will require more land to make houses, and the land
will come naturally by cutting forests or it will be agricultural land. Then the production will be less and consumer
will be more. So this food security Bill is a clear cut way to more wastage of food. Inspite of that Government
should try to provide them jobs so that they will earn of their own. Instead of creating such type of Nonsense Act

they should try to find the answer that if India is self sufficient then why people are hungry. Problems and
solutions both are known to everyone, only there is a huge need to carry out those solutions.
One Much more harmful effect of Food wastage is that it has an adverse impact on climate change. Because
of the resources used like fertilizers, water, pesticides, seeds etc. food on the process of spoiling generates
Methane which is much more harmful than Carbon di-oxide for the production of greenhouse gas. Food losses
during harvest and storage reduce the income of small farmers which will resulted in a higher price for poor
consumers who cant afford to pay for the food. In 2013, i.e. the current year the price of Onion has raised up to
Rs. 80 because there was low production in onion producing areas.
Food wastage is a problem of everyone and fault of everyone and the sufferers are also everyone. There is an
urgent need for both the government and the people to contribute according to the best possible method and one
alone cannot do anything but the cooperation of both is required to tackle other problems like hoarding, black
marketing, price rise etc.
What Government will do that is separate, to stop food wastage the real actors are the people themselves.
Unless the people themselves take necessary steps Food wastage cannot solve. The people can demand the
Government to keep priority on improving the level of agriculture, their productivity; make the lives of rural
populations better as there were cases of Farmers suicide as they are unable to pay the debt of the bank, better
irrigational facility(farmers are mostly depended upon Monsoon which is also disturbed now a days)ways to stop
using Fertilizers and instead using natural Manure Introduce new machineries and technique to improve farming,
preparing more and more cold storage facilities so that products doesnt spoil while reaching to the customers.
Also it is recommended that if selling farms can be set up near the consumers society where farmers can direct
sell their farms shops then it will give a big boost to everyone.
Apart from that the common masses have to take an important stand because the Government without the
help of the common masses cannot do anything. From oursides we should take strong measures to stop food
wastage. We should prepare our meal planning a week before and this will help us in bringing the exact
requirement of food material. A lot of material is wasted in weddings, parties, hotels etc because they always
prepared more than required amount and as a result all the remaining food items were thrown into the dustbin or
garbage dump nearby. Childrens should be taught to take limited food in their plates. Awareness campaign like
Road shows, Stage shows, Rallies should be done as more as possible because this is the only way we can create
awareness among those people who might not know that food wastage is also a problem. If we have extra food
leftover then instead of throwing that we can give it to the needy person nearby. Traditionally, our Indian women
use certain ways like putting water into the leftover rice so that it can be consumed as breakfast. Refrigerator
helps a lot in saving food waste. In India, food grain is given the name of Annapurna. The name of a Goddess and
even respect the food grains. But with the changing time the amount of food waste has also risen, earlier taking
the importance of Food grain our former Prime Minister Shri Lal bahadur Shastri has given a slogan Jai Jawan Jai
Kisan. Time has come when this slogan is to be taken into everyone life.
Worlds populations is now around 7 billion which is estimated to reach 9 billion people by 2050 and assuring
their food security, we will have to increase food productivity and also at the same time reduce food losses and
waste.

World Environment Day -2013 has taken a step to make aware people towards reducing food wastage by
making this year theme as Think. Eat. Save. This clearly takes us to remind to think before we eat and help in
saving our Environment.
Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, at which at times we are no longer
able to give a first value. Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry.
Contribute for the creation of a better India. Stop and aware other people to stop food waste.

PAYAL AGARWAL

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