Like air and water food is also the basic necessity of life, we need to eat in order to survive as food provides us with essential vitamins and minerals for proper functioning of our body system.
With prolific increase in population, there is a great demand for more food products in the market and with this problem of food wastage is also touching new heights, especially in India. According to UN estimates forty percent of food produced in India is generally wasted. Despite India’s capacity to produce adequate amount of food to feed her population, millions of people suffer from food shortage and remain undernourished. Sad reality is that our Farmers (ANNDATTA) too suffer from the scarcity of food and are forced to live a miserable life.
According to agriculture ministry INR 50,000 crore worth of food is wasted every year in the country. This wastage is happening at different levels due to improper management in supply chain and lack of concern about this on individual level.
Restaurants and hotels are the main contributor in this wastage. Big budget social gatherings like weddings and other family functions are also the source of food wastage in huge amount. Though awareness around this has significantly grown in the last few years and with the help of NGO’s necessary steps are taken to minimize food wastage. Many restaurants donate leftover food to orphanages and some are utilizing it to produce organic fertilizers.
I believe that eliminating food wastage fully is practically not possible but we can reduce it by taking some steps. The least we can do is to be individually responsible for not wasting the food we get to eat and spread awareness about it as it takes blood and sweat to produce what we get on our plate.