Farm to Plates: As Millions go Hungry, India Looks at Ways to Stop Food Wastage

Copenhagen: In an effort to tackle massive food wastage in the country, India has sought help from countries excelling in food technology.

Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who was in Copenhagen to attend the World Food Summit 2018, pitched for more international collaborations in the field of food processing.

"India is one of the world’s largest food producers and we are trying to curb wastage during production, processing, retailing and consumption by partnerships and technology with overseas collaboration," Kaur said.

Praising Denmark’s technical advancement in the sector, the minister said, “India has a lot to learn from countries like Denmark who have created a state-of-the-art food processing infrastructure to minimize food wastage and it needs to borrow their technology.”

Badal also appreciated private corporation’s efforts in the field, saying India’s tie-up with companies like Danfoss has worked well.

Danfoss, a refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment manufacturer, claims to have taken initiatives in places like Tamil Nadu where it helped farmers double their income and reach the European market for the first time.

“Our food gets wasted even before it comes to the plate, whereas in the West, the food which is on the plate gets wasted,” Kaur added.

India produces a lot of food but also loses more — about 30 per cent of it all — even as millions suffer from hunger.

Danish minister of environment and food, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, pointed out that “more than 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year”, which is equivalent to 24 per cent of all the food produced for human consumption.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed MOUs with Denmark on Animal Husbandry, Food Safety and Agricultural Research.

The central government has said that it is trying to stop food losses and address hunger in various ways, including using technology and by changing distribution strategies.

Wastage of food is not only limited to vegetables, fruits and seafood but also milk. Ironically, India is the second largest producer of vegetables in the world, however, its share in global exports is only around 1.3 per cent.

One of the major reasons for this is the lack of storage infrastructure, more so, in the cold chain sector. According to official data, only 6 per cent of food in India goes through cold chains, whereas in developed markets, it is around 70 per cent.

In India, more than one-third of all food is lost, and about 50 per cent of the food calories is lost due to inefficient cold storages. Despite India being major food producing countries in the world, only 10 per cent food gets processed resulting in enormous food wastage, Kaur concluded.

* Visit Courtesy Food Nation.