Food loss and wastes (FLW) are a serious problem worldwide.
The number one is Food Loss (FL) that occurs at every stage of the supply chain from field production to food on the table. Most of the food loss is due to two factors:
Contrllable management factors:
- Right time and proper method sowing and other crop management operations including the harvest and post-harvest processing in the field.
- Inadequate infrastructure for transport, processing, and storage of foods. This is especially important for perishables where more than half of the produce is lost due to inadequate infrastructure and poor handling of the produce.
- Lack of education and technical support in field and the next steps in supply chain management.
- Soil conservation and soil health management is critical for sustainable food production in the field.
- Water resource conservation and management for food production is critical in water-limited areas.
Factors beyond the control of individual players in the supply chain:
- Climate change: Global warming, heat waves, cold waves, drought, flood, land slides, cyclones, etc. These factors must be tackeld by government agencies and multinational organizations.
- Resource depletion and resource degradation: Again we need action at the national, regional, and global level.
- Deforestation for farming and other pruposes: A tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions comes for clearing forests for farming and othe uses, and is responsible for loss of forests and natural biodiversity.
- Desertfication: We need to take action at national, regional and global level to minimize and or to contain the expansion of deserts.
- Farm related pollution of soil and water resources in chemical intensive agriculture. We need to encourage farmers to move away from chemical intensive agriculture and to take up regenerative farming.
The number two is food wastage (W). This is a serious problem which is responsible for avoidable food wastes due to our affluence, lack of appreciation of how hard and resource demaning it is to produce that food, sheer negligence in handling food, and lack of awareness of people going to bed hungry due to poverty. We can see enormous amounts of foods wasted and thrown away in marriages and other social functions, in canteens of affluent colleges and schools, in high class restaurants, and in super matkets. To reduce such food losses we need to do the following:
- Education and awareness creationn of the public on how they throw away foods and what they can do individually and collectively to reduce food losses at home and in restaurants.
- Education of children in schools on food and nutrition and food losses in the supply chain so thay they grow up as respobsible citizens to minimize and or prevent food losses.
- Distribution of excess foods from social functions and restaurants to the hungry and poor through voluntary organizations involved in feeding and supporting the poor.
- Pricing of foods at the right level. In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, we have an organization called Shanti Social Services provding 15,000 to 20,000 excellent meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) to people (rich and poor) at one fourth to one fifth of what it will cost in regular restaurants in the city. When they reduced this low price further by half, the amount of food wasted by customers doubled. As a result, they revised the price back to the original level to minimize food wastes. It is a strange behavior of people to waste food when they get food at low price or free.
- Providing incentives at testaurants for not to waste food. Even in buffet system, people do waste a lot foods.
Hope it is helpful. Thank you.
Dr. Vethaiya BALASUBRAMANIAN