Food Waste vs. Hunger: Our National Contradiction

In last week’s article, I mentioned the ‘Food Waste Index Report 2024’ released by the UNEP, which aims to halve food waste by 2030 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal #12. (SDG 12) Before moving ahead, I thought I should give a brief introduction to SDGs.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty and hunger, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. There are a total of 17 sustainable development goals that are integrated and interconnected. It is recognised that the action in one area will affect outcomes in others and that development must balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

Out of these 17 goals, SDG #2 speaks about ‘Zero Hunger’, which means not a single person should remain hungry or malnourished by 2030. A large share of the world population is still consuming far too little to meet even their basic needs. Halving the per capita of global food waste at the retailer and consumer levels is also important for creating more efficient production and supply chains. This can help with food security and shift us towards a more resource-efficient economy. This is the objective of SDG #12.

Against this backdrop, let us see where India stands. We are well aware of the fact that India has a rich heritage and a lot of diversity concerning food habits and cuisine. However, more than 23 crore people are far away from getting proper food. The Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India has reported that nearly Rs. 50,000 crores worth of food gets wasted each year. This amount of food that is getting wasted every single day in a country where millions of people still go to bed hungry each night is an appalling reality that demands our immediate attention and action.

In addition to reports like the Food Waste Index, other global assessments also track hunger and nutrition levels. One such tool is the Global Hunger Index (GHI), prepared annually by Welthungerhilfe, a 60-year-old non-profit organisation based in Germany, in collaboration with Concern Worldwide and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict. The GHI is a peer-reviewed report based on data from credible sources such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and authorised government surveys.

The GHI is used to measure and track hunger at global, regional, and national levels, and it acts as a critical pointer to the current state of food insecurity across nations. Countries are ranked based on four indicators: undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality. The higher the score and rank, the more serious the hunger situation.

GHI is a tool to measure and track hunger at global, regional, and national levels, and is a pointer to the sorry state of affairs. It ranks and allocates scores to countries based on four indicators: undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality. The higher the rank, the worse off the country is. In the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2024, India ranks 105th out of 127 countries, highlighting a "serious" hunger crisis driven by ongoing challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition. This is a little better than GHI 2023, where India’s rank was 111th out of 127 countries. More about this and food security and food waste in the next article. Till then, have a nice weekend!

(The author is an environmentalist.)