The Impact of Food Loss and Food Wastage on Global Hunger and Nutrition

Nearly 1/2 of all fruit and vegetables produced globally are wasted each year – UN

Source: Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Goal 12 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns reflects the increased global awareness of food loss and waste. It calls for halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses by 2030.?

Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year—approximately 1.3 billion tonnes—gets lost or wasted. The amount of food wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010). Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.

Food Loss and Food Wastage?in Developing Countries

Source: Times of India

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) , developing countries waste 40 percent of food items at post-harvest and processing levels, with 1.3 billion tonnes of food being wasted annually worldwide. Around 14 percent of the world’s food is lost from post-harvest up to, but excluding the retail level. About 925 million people around the world suffer from hunger. A staggering 3 billion or more cannot afford a healthy diet.?

Per the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report 2021 , 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed. 690 million people or 8.9 percent of the world population were hungry in 2019 and close to 750 million or nearly one in ten people in the world were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity. This number is expected to increase sharply, with a minimum of 83 million and possibly as many as 132 million going hungry in 2020 because of the economic recession during and post COVID-19.?

Food Loss in India

According to the Food Corporation of India , at about 10–12 percent, losses for cereals and oilseeds are lower. Some 23 million tonnes of food cereals, 12 million tonnes of fruits, and 21 million tonnes of vegetables are lost each year, with a total estimated value of 240 billion Rupees. The Ministry of Food Processing estimates agricultural produce worth 580 billion Rupees is wasted in India each year. As much as 194,502 metric tonnes of food grains worth billions of rupees were wasted in India due to various reasons between 2005 and 2013.

Food Wastage in India?

In 2015-16, the government bought 62.3 million tonnes of rice and wheat, of which 3,116 tonnes of grains were wasted, which is just 0.005 percent of the total purchase. In 2016-17, of the total purchase of 61 million tonnes, wastage was just 0.014 percent. For 2017-18 and 2018-19, it was 0.003 percent and 0.006 percent respectively. In 2019-20, the government purchased 75.17 million tonnes of food grains, of which 1,930 tonnes were wasted, which is 0.002 percent of the total procurement.

Food waste from households (61 percent), the food service industry (26 percent) and retail establishments (13 percent) totals 931 million tonnes each year. Nearly 570 million tonnes of this waste occurs at the household level. The global average of food wasted per capita each year is 121 kg, of which 74 kg wasted in households is similar for lower-middle-income and high-income countries. Households in India waste 50 kilograms of food per person per year. People need help to reduce food waste at home.

The Impact of Food Loss and Food Wastage on India

In the 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI) , India ranks 101st out of the 116 countries with a score of 27.5—a level of hunger that is serious. The GHI score uses a combination of four component indicators to measure hunger: undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality.