Perfecting Youth

Author(s): Udayvallabhvijay
Publisher: Samkit Yuvak Mandal

Page 26

prevent the enormous foodgrain loss just due to improper & inefficient infrastructure and management.
X Produced but uneaten food occupies 30% of the world's farmland that is nearly 1.4 billion hectares. Other key findings include that food produced but not eaten, guzzles up a volume of water, equivalent to the annual flow in Russia's Volga river or three times the volume of lake Geneva.
This is the loss the nation is bearing mainly on uncooked food due to lack of efficiency of the authorities. More significant is the heavy loss of cooked food due to the extravagance of the richer class.
This report is said to be the first to analyze impact of global food wastage from an environmental perspective. It has looked specifically at its consequences for the climate, water, land use and biodiversity.
Various studies have highlighted the facts as below:
• Wedding ceremonies seem to lavish juxtaposed against the extreme poverty in India.
As per FAO chief, one of the reason for such a big food waste is a 'tendency of excessive consumption in middle and high income countries.'
untries.
. Among the rich and rising middle class it is a fashion to hire event managers/ wedding planners to organise such gatherings in hotels, restaurants, farmhouses or clubs.
. Social functions, particularly marriages, are now opportunities for the elite to showcase their wealth and status.
Coming to India, on one side the politicians in the previous Government desperately wanted to pass the Food Security Bill, and on the other hand there was a heavy food wastage, the figure mounting up to 17,546 tonnes. As per World Health Organization guidelines, a minimum of 250 gm food grains is required per person - per day to survive. The cumulative loss would have fed at least seven crore people. Actually, we are in need of a food security rather than food security bill. In the year 2012-13, the centre has spent a huge amount of Rs.75,366 crores on food subsidies, but no effective steps have been taken to
• The people who have benefited due to rapid economic growth are staging extravagant culinary displays. This results in a heavy food wastage. It is impossible for anyone to taste this wide array of dishes varying between 200 to 350 items and hence, large quantity of food is either thrown into the municipal dustbins or poured into gutters.
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PERFECTING YOUTH