Food should not be wasted rather deserve respect for the survival of ‘world society’…

World Food Day is a day of action against hunger, celebrated each year on October 16, in 150 nations, with commitment around the world to eradicate hunger and the theme of the year is – Social Protection and Agriculture – Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty – as defined by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, which is concerned with preventing, managing and overcoming situations that adversely affect people’s well-being.

World Food Day also celebrates the creation of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, in 1945, in Quebec, Canada.

It is said that despite its celebrations at the world level, the graph of mal-nutrition and poverty has not gone down rather it is constantly in the increasing trend and the main reason stated to be the damage of foodgrains.  No doubt, the stress has been made to increase the production of foodgrain but we are still fighting with the real problem and without its solution, celebration of World Food Day is of no use at all. 

Presently, the world is divided into two categories – Rich and Poor and the reality is that rich are becoming richer and poverty of poor is also increasing.  Unless and until, this imbalance is not controlled, the poor will continue to strive.  The need of the hour is that the nations which are sufficient in food quantity must help the needy with any kind of assistance free of charges to have control over this menace. In fact, mal-nutrition is related to poverty and to remove the poverty, we need to make all-out efforts at the world level to achieve the desired targets.  

Social protection consists of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labour markets, diminishing people’s exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to manage economic and social risks, such as unemployment, exclusion, sickness, disability and old age.  

There is empirical evidence that higher agriculture productivity can positively impact poverty reduction by increasing rural incomes, reducing food prices in domestic markets, generating economic opportunities in the non-farm sector and stimulating and sustaining economic transformation.

The world is concerned about the global hunger and poverty. The need to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger was presented as the very first 

In the agriculture sector, its main focus has been to enhance agricultural production and productivity. Since 2008, the Bank has shifted its focus to development of rural infrastructure in order to connect agricultural production to markets, provide appropriate storage facilities, and add value as well as increase shelf life of agricultural commodities through agro-processing. This would substantially reduce post-harvest losses estimated at 40% of agricultural production (which has greatly contributed to food shortages as well as nutrition deficiency), bring smallholder farmers nearer to markets, increase value of their produce, and increase trade in agriculture and the welfare of rural communities. 

Some of the achievements made include construction of all-weather rural and feeder roads that connect villages to the main roads, rural markets and commodity collection centres that create growth nodes in parts of rural areas, agro-processing facilities operated by individual operators or associations (such as milk coolers and dairy products, rice mills and coffee hullers) or leased to private operators, increased access to reliable electricity that in turn supports agro-processing, fish landing and processing facilities.

There is evidence that, even without processing and value addition on agricultural commodities, connecting farmers to markets has increased their incomes as it cuts out middlemen, reduces distances to markets and cost of transport, reduces losses due to lack of markets and delay in transportation, and increases the number of traders and competition. 

The Banks have also intervened in other social protection activities such as school feeding programs, cash transfer activities, rural credit schemes especially for women, and skills development for all, including women and youth. 

This day is being celebrated for the last 35 years but there is no decrease in the people sleeping without food in the world and it is increasing day by day. It is expected that the world population will cross 9 billion in 2050 and about 80 percent people will live in developed countries.  It is very unfortunate that in certain houses the food is wasted whereas there are persons who are not even getting food for a single time and it is the story of every developed and under-developed countries as the half of the food production is wasted every year. 

According to the report of Indian Institute of Public Administration, in India, every year 23 crore ton food, 12 crore fruit and 21 crore vegetables are wasted because of poor distribution system and wastage in good quantity in function, seminars, marriage parties etc. 

Majority of the developed countries are facing the food problem because of increase in population.  According to the official figures, in India with population of 125 crore, 32 crore people are living below the poverty line which is very alarming.

According to AFO, this figure was 23 core 10 lakh in 2009 and there is no change in this situation so far as the increasing trend is concerned. If we see the statistics of 2016 by Global Hunger Index, India comes at 97thposition and it rejects all tall claims of India ranking of development.

Around 24,000 people in the world die every day, not because of any chronic disease but due to hunger and one-third0, which comes 6000 of this figure, falls in India itself. Not only this, about 30 crore poor people sleep without food in the countries who are exporting.  

Frankly speaking, on the one hand there is starvation in the country and on the other hand, lakhs of tons food go waste due to rains and every year there is a loss of Rs.450 crore due to damage of foodgrains.  Despite spending crores of money on the programmes of poverty and food related programmes, mal-nutrition is one of the major problem in our country and children are the victim of this situtaion resulting in their stagnation in physical and mental development as they failed to get the required die at their early age.

At the same time, to become self-sufficient in food, we have to adopt the new techniques of agriculture and with the increase of production, we can solve number of other existing problems.

WFD is celebrated in 150 countries with a view to create awareness and to come out with the solution to eradicate poverty and hunger.  Since half of the world is living without the basic amenities, we should not waste food and respect it and to maintain the balanced development of the world society, it is necessary that there should be overall development of human beings.  The people should get rich diet so that they should live a healthy life coming out of the circle of mal-nutrition.

Last but not the least, the avoid the wastage of foodgrain, India must adopt the recommendations of Dr.Swaminathan by setting up storage points at 150 locations in the country, without wasting any time or invite the private entrepreneurs to construct the scientific storage units by offering the higher storage charges in comparison to the investment involved to repay the bank loans.