Thought for food: Why waste it?

Festivity is synonymous to food in India. On Dusshera day, Ahmedabad guzzled around 20 lakh kilos of fafda and jalebi worth around Rs 40 crore — about one to two kg per family in a single day.

Diwali was bigger. While festivals generate business and boost local economy, they also equally increase food waste. If India produces 250 million tonnes of food grain annually while its estimated consumption is 25 million tonnes less than that, there should be surplus grain situation in the country. Yet, ironically, estimated 250 million people are believed to sleep hungry every day. As per one estimate, the figure is about 87 crore. This suggests gross waste of food along the entire chain. Up to 40% of the food produced in India is wasted. In fact, agriculture ministry pegged it at Rs50,000 crore worth of food produced, wasted every year in the country.

Nearly a quarter of the food after parties, weddings or in restaurants goes waste and is thrown away. Bigger the wedding, larger the party, colossal the waste. As per the recent UN report, India surpasses China in terms of food waste and its impact on natural resources. It estimates that India consumes more than 230 cu km of fresh water, equivalent to drinking water supply to 10 crore people, for producing food items ultimately wasted.

The newly created National food security Bill-2013 gives nearly two third of India’s population the right to food grains, subsidised grossly. One in eight persons in the world does not get adequate and healthy food. Apparently, hunger is more of a health risk compared to the commonest diseases like malaria or tuberculosis put together. Indian calorie needs average out to about 2,100 calories daily per person, while the average is much higher in United Sates of America at 3,800 calories per day per person. 

Again, traditional wisdom remains a worthy answer in the situation. Ahmedabad produces around 2,700 metric tonnes of waste daily, nearly 70% of which is the organic waste, domestic sector waste largely consisting of food and vegetable peels etc. This waste is simply picked up by hundreds of truck loads and dumped in the fringe with no treatment. In traditional habitats like pols, there were two basic approaches to symbiotically turn problem into virtue. Beggars would go through neighbourhoods post dinner time and collect surplus food from the households. This meant no waste and no hungry person. Organic waste like vegetable peels and spoiled food was left at street junction on a ‘chat stone’ to feed cats, cattle and dogs. Again, it meant reduced or zero waste along with healthy disposal. The contemporary responses are multi-tiered earthen pot or roof top or garden composting of waste. The important part is to not produce the waste itself.

Why do we not get leftover food packed from the restaurants? Why are we too lazy to make a round to squatter settlement after the party for the excess food? Why is there no network or system to collect surplus food before being thrown in dumps and distribute to the needy? Fakir bhojans near Teen Darwaja is a great model to adopt for such use.

There was the first World Food Summit held at Rome in 1996 to deliberate on the issue of food security for all. With obviously no results in sight, one is reminded of the popular joke that aptly summarises the situation. It says: “United Nations held a worldwide opinion poll before the summit. The opinion poll read: ‘Please give your frank and honest opinion about the food shortages in the rest of the world.’ Understandably, it failed miserably as no country in the world could understand the meaning of the full sentence.  In Latin America they did not understand the meaning of word ‘please’; in Gulf they could not understand ‘frank’; in South-east Asia they did not understand the meaning of ‘honest’; in Communist bloc they did not understand what ‘opinion’meant, Africa could not fathom the word ‘food’; Europe did not know about ‘shortages’ and America did not understand ‘the rest of world’...