One of the most frustrating problems today is food waste. One-third of all the food produced in the world is directly turned into garbage. On the other hand, about 1 crore people die without food every year. In today's discussion, I will highlight some surprising facts about hunger and malnutrition, and food wastage.
Worldwide, more than 850 million people suffer from severe malnutrition. About 25,000 people die every day from malnutrition and hunger. Of which there are about 10 thousand children. This means that every 10 seconds a child dies from not eating. Not only that, every year more than 100 million people lose the ability to buy new food. There is so much food produced in the world that food is supposed to survive even after everyone has eaten. But with rising global food prices, more and more people are suffering from hunger every day.
We have exacerbated the problem of hunger and malnutrition hundreds of times through excessive food waste. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 1.3 billion tons of food is directly wasted every year. Which is about 30% of the food produced worldwide. The market value of this huge amount of wasted food is about 85 lakh crore rupees. If only one-fourth of the amount of food wasted could be given to the poor, 87 crore people would be able to eat. In other words, if there was a balanced distribution of food, there would be no such thing as hunger in the world.
Food waste is not just a matter of half-eaten. A lot of food is wasted which did not even reach anyone's plate. Even those foods are useful for resale. But the food was thrown in the dustbin without giving it to any poor person. Many people need work, money, fuel, water, and land to produce food. Global 25% pure water is used to produce the amount of food that is wasted. To produce wasted food requires so much land that it is larger than the whole of China. Valuable fuels like electricity and oil are also consumed in the storage and transportation of food produced.
Such a huge amount of food waste has a devastating effect on climate change. The number of greenhouse gases produced to produce wasted food would be the third-highest in the world if any one country. The frustrating thing is that many of the farmers who are directly involved in the food production process are starving. So far, only one-third of the world's population is a farmer. They have to buy a lot more food than they produce.
The people of Saudi Arabia waste the most food in the world. On average, a Saudi citizen loses about 250 kg of food every year. In the United States alone, so much fresh food is thrown away daily that the world's largest football stadium can be easily filled. But even in the so-called developed countries like America, 1 out of every 8 people cannot eat regularly. We don't like anyone to waste food. But we don't think too much about it. Global food waste habits cannot be changed overnight. From today, we will personally try to reduce food wastage to zero. At the same time, I will try to give food to the hungry.