How to prevent food from getting lost?
This is not any scientific method but this is a simple method of preventing food loss.
Food is wasted by us in lot of ways. We eat food but we always have some part of the meal always on the plate which gets wasted. Some of the food is kept long by us and hence it gets stale due to rotting of the vegetative matter. While harvesting and transport some part of the food is wasted due to improper machinery and transport facilities. To get optimum use of the food one has to harvest it on a perfect period which will give the perfect output. While much of the food is wasted in places like a restaurant or a some programme such as a wedding where lots of food is wasted due to numerous dishes. Some estimates say it’s between 1/3 to 1/2 of the total food production. Food Waste is a major part of the impact of agriculture on climate change and also causes other environmental issues. The FAO i.e. Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN estimated in 2014 that food waste lost causes a global economic, environmental and social cost of $2.6 trillion a year and is responsible for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Stats mentioned here are horrifying and remind us how much of a food we waste which may have been saved.
Solution to this food loss problem
Awareness needs to be spread to cultivator to prevent loss of food while production. With the use of technology and genetics farmers can use pest resistant as well as varieties which offer longer harvesting period should be used to reduce the food loss. A quick and efficient transportation system is required further loss of food due to bad contions present or long time journeys which causes rotting of food. Proper conditions cause food to last longer without decay. Proper storage facilities also leads to prevention of food loss which is essential for the developing countries as the poor condition lead to food loss. Further the improper distribution of food also leads to food wastage. Proper distribution system needs to be setup to prevent this loss as such that the remainder food is provided to the impoverished such that everys man should get food and some of it needs to be stored for emergency use and other purposes. The most amount of food is wasted by consumers, we waste a lot of food in different parties, merrymaking, restaurants and even at our homes we waste a lot of food. We should take only as much food as we desire and should not waste it. Food is valuable and should not go as waste. There are many people who are food starved there are around 800 million people, who suffer from chronic hunger. All due to us, our agricultural setup can provide food for more than 10 billion people but due to food losswe are unable to do so. There have been organisation formed for providing the leftover food to the hunger starved people so that they recieve proper nutrition which would lead to the growth of country as a whole because a healthy country leads to a healthy economy. The work like that of these establishment needs to be done to ensure proper distribution of food among the impoverished. While also having less options and proper amount of food is essential to cause less food getting wasted. On one’s special occasion one should also feed the impoverished while hosting a celebration for the event. He should also ensure proper management of food so that no food gets to waste.
It’s the responsibility of human to ensure the needs of other human. We must act upon our moral responsibility of taking care of others by just doing one simple thing of not wasting food which is one of the component that is essential for survival. Adding up to that it would also lead to less environmental degradation as the waste food causes soil, water as well as air pollution. The food should not be wasted but if the rotten food or somehow it’s wasted it should be decomposed into the soil to form compost. The compost increases the fertility of soil and restores the essential minerals of it. There have been recent developments of other uses of such waste which needs to be used.
The international community has identified the reduction of food waste as an important part of developing a sustainable economy with sustainable goal 12 seeking to halve the global per capita food waste. There are other projects also like Project Dropdown describes reducing food waste as one of the more effective ways to reduce the carbon intensity of the food system. We should actively take part in saving food as it has social, civic, environmental, economic as well as humanistic benefits. Many others don’t get it so why do we not give it to them rather than wasting it.
