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Food Security and Food Wastage in India and

Joy Prakash Chowdhuri

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March 9, 2020
Food Security and Food Wastage in India and Around
the World

By

Dr. Joy Prakash Chowdhuri

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“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. Like Slavery

and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and

eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be

great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom”. –

-----Nelson Mandela

World Food Day is celebrated every year on 16th October in the honour of

the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations in 1945. The day is celebrated by the organization with Food Security, World

Food Program and the International Fund for Agriculture Development.

The UN’s Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development

(IFAD) was set up at World Food Conference in 1974 and given a mandate of

combating hunger and rural poverty in a low-income food-deficit country. IFAD has

financed 578 projects in 115 countries, giving about US$ 7.2 billion in grants and

loans, mostly on highly concessional terms, repayable in 40 years. The World Food

Program (WFP) is the world’s largest international food aid organization in Rome. It

describes itself as the frontline United Nations organization fighting to eradicate

world hunger.

In 2000, it helped to feed more than 83 million people in 83 countries. The

food was in the form of cereals totalled 9.5 million tonnes. One of the big summit

in 20th century, the leaders of 186 countries met in Rome in November 1996 for the

World Food Summit. Around 840 million people were estimated to be chronically

hungry. The Rome Declaration on World Food Security and Plan of Action, to

combat hunger making a commitment to halve the number of hungry people in the

world by 2015. It was the first step to goal for ‘food for all’. The cost would be US$

60 billion over 15 years or US$ 4 billion per year.

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 The food security defined in the declaration as food that is available at all

times, to which all persons have means of access that is nutritionally adequate in

terms of quantity, quality and variety; and is acceptable within the given culture.

The FAO report on food insecurity noted that 826 million people were

chronically hungry and that rate of decline in the number of hungry people was

woefully inadequate, reducing by only 8 million per year during the first half of the

1990s. The reduction of at least 20 million every year between 2000 and 2015 is

needed to reach the World Food Security (WFS) target, Unless extra efforts were

made to accelerate progress, the 1996 WFS goal of cutting the number of

undernourished to 400 million by 2015 would not be achieved before 2030.

There are an estimated 842 million hungry people on the planet. This means

that one in eight people in the world suffers from chronic hunger, not having enough

food for an active and healthy life. Plus the number of people on the planet is

increasing rapidly. Production of basic staple foods will need to increase by 60

percent to meet the expected growth in demand.

As per World Health Organization guidelines, a minimum of 250 gm food grains is

required per person per day to survive. The cumulative loss could have fed at least

seven crore people.

Food Wastage Problem in the World:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a three-day summit on world food

security in Rome that today, more than one billion people are hungry, and six million

children die of hunger every year -- 17,000 every day. In 2050, the world will need to

feed 2 billion more mouths -- 9.1 billion in all.

The UN Committee on World Food Security in its latest report concluded that

food wastes and food losses are due to many different reasons in various parts of the

world. In wealthy countries, food takes up only a relatively trivial proportion of

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income so people can afford to throw away food but in developing countries like

Pakistan, the problem is not of wealth but of poverty.

Member of European Parliament, Liam Aylward (FiannaFáil, Ireland), who

negotiated on behalf of the Alliance of Liberal Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group,

said, It is outrageous that almost 90 million tonnes of perfectly fine foods get wasted

each year while an estimated 79 million people in the EU live beneath the poverty

line and around 16 million depend on food aid from charitable institutions.

According to EU Commission figures, households, supermarkets and

restaurants, along with the rest of the food supply chain, are currently wasting up to

50 percent of edible food. European Member of Parliament (MEPs) called for 2014 to

be designated as "European year against food waste". The EU27 currently

wastes 89 million tonnes of food each year - equivalent to 179 kg per person.

Food Wastage in Developing Countries:

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), developing countries

waste 40 percent food items, 1.3 billion tonnes food waste annually all over the

world. Some 925 million people around the world suffer from hunger. Given the

limited availability of natural resources, it is more effective to reduce food losses than

increase food production in order to feed a growing world population, the FAQ says.

The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the

world’s annual cereal crops, the FAO said in a report.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2015- Global food

security index 2015 the ranks of the countries are as follows: Pakistan 77th out of 109

countries sampled, substantially below regional countries like India ranked 68th, Sri

Lanka ranked 63th, Vietnam stood at 65, China at 42 and Malaysia at 34. The USA

and Singapore stood 1st and 2nd rant respectively and Chad and Burundi stood 108th

and 109th respectively.

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Food grains Wastage in India:

India loses forty percent of its food due to spoiling. India lacks the sufficient

infrastructure to store and transport food products; concomitantly substantial

amount of food simply decays away. The inadequate storage infrastructure resulted

in wastage of fruits, grains and vegetables worth Rs 44,000 crore (1 Crore equal to 10

Million) every year.

Through the Right to Information Act (RTI) it revealed that the foodgrains damaged

in Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns across the country were more than

40,000 tonnes. It was increased in last two years. The losses are due to natural

calamities like cyclone and floods as well as poor storage facilities and transit loss in

India. (Times of India).

The wastage of food grains was at 25,353 MT in 2006-07, 4,426 MT in 2007-

08, and 20,114 in 2008-09. At least 17,546 tonnes of food-grains was damaged

between 2009-10 and July 2012 in Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns. The

damaged quantity rose threefold in five years — from 6,346 tonnes in 2010-11 to

18,847.22 tonnes in 2014-15. While 3,338.01 tonnes were damaged in 2011-12 and

3,148.44 tonnes were damaged in 2012-13, as many as 24,695.45 tonnes suffered

damage in 2013-14. A total of more than 56,000 tonnes of food grains, including

27,000 tonnes of rice and 26,000 tonnes of wheat, were damaged since 2010, the

reply revealed.(Times of India).

There were as much as 1,94,502 metric tonnes of food grains worth billion of

rupees were wasted in India due to various reasons between 2005 and March 2013.

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 Wastages of Foodgrains in the Indian States:

In West Bengal, the percentage of damaged rice was between 2009-10 and 2011-12

with a loss of around 2,300 tonnes. In 2013-14, West Bengal topped the list with

12,539 tonnes followed by Bihar (3,909.408 tonnes). In Punjab, the loss reduced

from 2,223 tonnes in 2009-10 to only 37 tonnes during 2011-12. The damaged stock

around 84 percent (16,3576 MT) was rice and 14 percent wheat (26,543 MT). Punjab

with a total damage stock of 98,200 MT recorded 50% of the total damages.

Maharashtra recorded a total of 20,067 MT of damaged stock, accounting for 10

percent of the total loss.

In 2014-15, Odisha topped the list with 7,108 tonnes, mainly due to the havoc

wrought by cyclone Phailin in the coastal regions. In Jammu and Kashmir wastage of

foodgrains was 6,120 tonnes, it was caused by the unprecedented floods of

September 2014. Andhra Pradesh the total wastage of food grains was 2,262 tonnes

and in Karnataka 747 tonnes.

Hunger People around the World:

The 805 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy

active life and it is one in nine people in the world. The majority of the world's

hungry people lives in developing countries, and 13.5 percent of the population is

undernourished. The two-thirds of the total of hunger people live in Asian

continents. In the Sub-Saharan Africa, the hunger people lives and one person in

four is undernourished. The Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in

children under five which are almost 3.1 million children every year. One out of six

children approx 100 million in developing countries is underweight. The 66 million

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primary school-age children attend classes hungry in developing countries and 23

million in Africa itself. The hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and

tuberculosis combined. It is estimated that 300 million children go to bed hungry

every day. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's

one child every five seconds. the 65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven

countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia,

Pakistan and Ethiopia. Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s

population and nearly two-thirds of the world’s hungry people.

If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in

the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. The WFP calculates that US$3.2

billion is required to feed 66 million hungry school-age children every year.

India is home to the highest number of hungry people in the world, at 194 million,

surpassing China, according to United Nations annual hunger report. According to

The National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) in 2004-05, revealed that 23% of

married men, 52% of married women and a chilling 72% of infants were suffering

from anaemic - a sure sign that a shockingly large number of families were caught in

a downward spiral of slow starvation.

UN body Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in its report titled 'The State

of Food Insecurity in the World 2015'. India saw a reduction between 1990 and 2015,

it added. In India, 1990-92, those who were starved of food in India numbered 210.1

million, which came down to 194.6 million in 2014-15. India's numerous social

programmes are expected to fight hunger and poverty.

China stood out as the reduction in the number of hungry people was much higher

than in India. It came down to 133.8 million in 2014-15 from 289 million in 1990-92.

In 1996, 29 countries met in World Food Summit and adopted the more ambitious

goal to reduce halve the absolute number of undernourished by 2015. It was one of

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the objectives of FAO to achieve the Millennium Development Goal target of halving

the prevalence of undernourishment by 2015.

The overall analysis suggested that inclusive economic growth, agricultural

investments and social protection, along with political stability, can eradicate hunger,

the UN report added.

Last but not the least the government of India should be focused on increase

the food productions and well as manage to keep them safe in stores. The

government should also ensure that these food grains should be accessed by poor

and needy people particularly Below Poverty Line (BPL) families without any

hindrance. It is the responsibility of the government that people could not sleep

without having food or empty stomach at night. The data shows that there are

sufficient amount of food grains for all citizen. It also explores that due to lack of

storage facilities million tonnes food grains were rotten or wasted in godowns and in

transit. In India, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) lost its credibility to keep the

food grains for its future demand. It is once again showing the inefficient policy-

making and its implementations process in our country. There are 194

million hungry people lives in India and we are losing the millions of food grains due

to lack of storages. It is also a matter of negligence of government officials who are

not seriously maintaining and implementing such food security process. They might

involve in corrupt practices. There should be serious observations for such

functioning of FCI officials in targeted regions and punished the culprits with

suspension from the job.

The government should think the alternative plans for food security and feed the

hungry people in India. The foodgrains could be distributed through panchayat level

to BPL families in their respective villages.

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India took a major step to make a people’s friendly act called National Food Security

Act 2013 under which many schemes were launched. Its main objectives are to

provide the food grains to needy people particularly deprived or poor people in

nominal rate. Now per households under Antyodaya Anna Yojana (Antyodaya Food

Scheme) is getting total 35-kilogram food grains per month at the cost of Rs. 3 per kg

for rice and Rs. 2 per kg for wheat and Re 1 per kg for coarse grams. The priority

households under National Food Security Scheme, per person, is getting 5 kg

foodgrains per month at the same rate.

There are some measures should be taken by government agencies which are as

follow: Food Production should be increased so that there should not be the shortage

of food in future, despite flood or famine and increase the population of the country.

The government should take the initiative to migrate the people from the scarcity of

food zone areas to excessive food availability areas and engaged them to foods for

work program through National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,

2005 (MNREGA) so that they could survive to have foods for their families.

Migration could be possible through the government agencies, non-governmental

organisations or volunteer organizations/ agencies.

It also possible to group migration of people from one place to other places

particularly agricultural prone areas or in the industrial zone.The BPL families

should be facilitated with the food, shelter and clothing.

It will help the government to reduce the transportation costs as well as wastage of

foods while transporting the food grains from one state to other states. It will help

the BPL families to engage themselves in agricultural or non- agricultural work for

their livelihood. It will help BPL families to overcome the problem of food and

hunger.

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The wastage of foodgrains should be stopped and the government should ensure the

constructions of godowns to maintain the quality and quantity of the foodgrains. The

NGOs and other volunteer organization/agencies could play an important role to

protect the foodgrains, but it should be monitored properly by honest officials.

The food grains could be kept in temples, churches, dharamshala, monastery and

mosque, etc to feed the poor people at least two times a day. The government should

the foodgrains in subsidise rates to such organization with proper vigilance by higher

authority. It may help to reduce the wastage of foodgrains in future. It will help to

reduce the hungry people as well as malnutrition among the people in developing

country like India.

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References:
 UN World Health Organization: Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, 2006
 UN Food and Agriculture Organization: SOFI 2006 Report
 National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (India)
 National Family Health Survey 2005 – 06 (NFHS-3) (India)
 Centre for Environment and Food Security (India)
 Rural 21 (India)
Books:
 Acharya, K.C.S (1983), Food Security System of India: Evaluation of the Buffer
Stocking Policy and Its Evaluation, New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.
 Ali, Sabir and M.D. Asthana (ed.) (2008), Urban Poverty in India: Issues and
Policies, New Delhi: UppalPublising House.
 Bardhan, Pranab K. and T.N. Srinivasan (1988), Rural Poverty in South Asia,
Calcutta: Oxford University Press.
 Chaturvedi, Pradeep edt. (2000) Food Security in South Asia, New Delhi: Concept
Publishing Company.
 Chopra, R.N. (1988), Food Policy in India: A survey, New Delhi: Intellectual
Publishing House.
 Donnison, David (1982), The Politics of Poverty, Oxford: Martin Robertson.
 Fonseca, A.J (edt.) (1971), Challenge of Poverty in India, Delhi: Vikash Publications.
 Goode, Judith Granich and Edwin Eames (1973), Urban Poverty in a Cross- Cultural
Context,
 Haber, Alan Joyce L. Kornblush and Louis A Ferman (ed.) (1969), Poverty in
America: A Book of Readings, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbar.
 Himmelfarb, Gertrude (1984), The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial
Age, London: Faber and Faber.
 Kundu, Amitabh, Urban Poverty in India- Issues and Perspectives in Development, in
Ali, Sabir and M.D. Asthana (ed.) (2008), Urban Poverty in India: Issues and
Policies, New Delhi: UppalPublising House.
 Landy, Frederic (2009), Feeding India: The Spatial Parameters of Food Grain Policy,
New Delhi: Manohar Publisher.
 Madeley, john, Food for All: The Need for a New Agriculture, Zed Books, London
and New York.

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 Mayne, Alan (2009), Poverty Eradication: Lessons from History, in Amit Singh, Kapil
Kapoor and Rabindranath Bhattacharyya, (ed.) Governance and Poverty Reduction:
Beyond the cage of Best Practices,
 Mitchell, Donald O., Merlinda D. Ingco and Ronald C. Duncan (1997), The World
Food Outlook, New York: Cambridge University Press.
 Schiller, Bradley R (1973), The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination, Prentice-
Hal Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
 Sen Amartya and Jean Dreze (2014) An Uncertain Glory: India and Its
Contradictions, London: Penguine Books
 Sengupta, Arjun, Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol XLV No 17, April 24-30 2010. P.92.
 UN-HABITAT, The Habitat Agenda Goals and Principles, Commitments and the
Global Plan of Action (www.unhabitat.org/declarations/habitat_agenda.htm),clause.1.
 UN-HABITAT, The Habitat Agenda, Clause 2, 28.
 Walt Gill, David A. Leon (2001), Poverty, Inequality and Health: An International
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Routledge and Kegan Poul.
 Winyard Stephen J. Paul F. Whiteley (1987), Pressure for the poor: the Poverty
Lobby and Policy Making, London and New York, Methuen.
 World Bank and UN-HABITAT, Cities Alliance for Cities Without Slums, in Mayne,
Alan, “Poverty Eradication: Lesson from History” from Amit Singh and Kapil
Kapoor et.al. Governance and Poverty Reduction: Beyond the Cage of Best Practices,
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Internet:
 http://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Country
 www.wikipedia.com
 file:///C:/Users/LPU/Downloads/EIU%20Global%20Food%20Security%20Index%20
-%202015%20Findings%20&%20Methodology.pdf

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Appendix-1.
2015 GFSI overall rankings table Weighted total of all category scores (0-100 where
100=most favourable) Rank Score /100 Rank Score /100 Rank Score /100
1 United States 89.0
2 Singapore 88.2
3 Ireland 85.4 4 Austria 85.1 5 Netherlands 85.0 6 Switzerland 84.4 7 Canada 84.2 8
Germany 83.9 =9 Australia 83.8 =9 France 83.8 =9 Norway 83.8 12 Sweden 82.9 13
New Zealand 82.8 14 Denmark 82.6 15 United Kingdom 81.6 16 Portugal 80.5 17
Finland 79.9 18 Belgium 79.5 =19 Israel 78.9 =19 Spain 78.9 21 Japan 77.4 22 Italy
77.0 23 United Arab Emirates 75.6 24 Kuwait 75.5 25 Czech Republic 74.9 26 South
Korea 74.8 27 Chile 74.3 28 Poland 74.2 29 Greece 73.5 30 Saudi Arabia 72.8 31
Hungary 71.4 32 Slovakia 70.7 33 Uruguay 69.4 34 Malaysia 69.0 35 Mexico 68.7 36
Brazil 67.4 37 Argentina 67.1 38 Costa Rica 66.9 39 Turkey 66.0 40 Panama 65.4 41
South Africa 64.5
42 China 64.2
43 Russia 63.8 44 Belarus 63.5 45 Romania 63.3 46 Botswana 63.1 47 Egypt 61.8 48
Venezuela 61.7 49 Serbia 61.5 50 Bulgaria 61.0 51 Tunisia 60.1 52 Thailand 60.0 53
Colombia 59.6 54 Peru 58.6 55 Jordan 58.5 =56 Dominican Republic 56.8 =56
Kazakhstan 56.8 58 Azerbaijan 56.6 59 Ukraine 56.1 60 Ecuador 56.0 61 Paraguay
54.5 62 Morocco 53.9 63 Sri Lanka 53.7 64 Uzbekistan 53.6 65 Vietnam 53.4 66 El
Salvador 53.3 67 Bolivia 52.8 = 68 Algeria 50.9 =
68 India 50.9=
70 Guatemala 49.7 =70 Nicaragua 49.7 72 Philippines 49.4 73 Honduras 49.3 74
Indonesia 46.7 75 Ghana 46.1 76 Cote d’Ivoire 46.0
77 Pakistan45.7 78 Myanmar 44.0 79 Uganda 42.8 =80 Benin 41.7 =80 Senegal
41.7 82 Cameroon 41.5 83 Kenya 41.2 84 Syria 40.6 85 Nepal 40.5 =86 Ethiopia 38.5
=86 Mali 38.5 88 Tajikistan 38.3 89 Bangladesh 37.4 90 Yemen 37.3 91 Nigeria 37.1
92 Sudan 36.5 93 Malawi 35.3 =94 Angola 35.1 =94 Rwanda 35.1 96 Cambodia 34.6
97 Guinea 33.9 98 Tanzania 33.7 =99 Burkina Faso 33.6 =99 Niger 33.6 101 Togo
33.4 102 Zambia 32.9 103 Mozambique 32.6 104 Haiti 31.1 105 Congo (Dem. Rep.)
30.1 106 Sierra Leone 29.0 107 Madagascar 28.8
108 Chad 27.9 109 Burundi 25.1 11
© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2015 Global food security index 2015 An
annual measure of the state of global.

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