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As long queues behind TCB (Trading Corporation of Bangladesh) tracks get longer for procurement of subsidised essentials, the disclosure, as made by the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP's) "Food Waste Index Report 2024", that a Bangladesh national wastes annually more food than an American is really upsetting. A Bangladesh national on an average wastes 85 kilograms of food which is not only higher than in neighbouring India (55 kg) but also in far richer and advanced nations such as the USA (73 kg), Russia ( 33 kg) and China (76 kg). A North American comparison is quite revealing as well. While the USA households, food service outlets and retailers are responsible for 73, 74 and 12 kg of food waste per capita per year, the waste levels in Canada are 79, 80 and 30 kg respectively.
The South Asian scene of food waste is quite intriguing. The Maldives households top the list with 207 kg of food waste, followed by Pakistan with 130 kg. Afghanistan comes third with 127 kg and Nepal with 93 kg. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh households, not per capita, account for waste of 76 kg. It seems the poorer the nations are in South Asia, the greater the waste. But then there is a startling exception---Bhutan wastes the lowest amount of food in the region at only 19 kg per person annually. This means its household waste is even lower.
Clearly, food waste is not limited to the affluent nations but can be equally or more vicious in poor, low-income and middle-income nations as well. The average levels of household food waste varied by just 7.0 kgs of food per capita across high-income, upper-middle- and lower-middle-income countries. Globally, one-fifth of the total food goes to waste while 783 million---one in 10 of world population --- people worldwide now face chronic hunger and one-third of the world population faces food insecurity.
Globally, the total food wasted is worth $1.0 trillion. Food waste takes place at several points but most waste happens at home. Worldwide household waste amounts to 531 million tonnes which is 60 per cent of the total food loss. Next comes the loss at restaurants and other food service outlets to the tune of 290 million tonnes and this is followed by 131 million tonnes of food loss at retailers. Another 13 per cent is lost at different points of the supply chain between harvest and sale.
Bangladesh also presents a distressing picture in this regard. Households here waste a total of 14.10 million tons of food annually. For example, Bangladesh produces onion in excess of its requirement but ultimately runs out of stock and has to import it explains the large-scale waste at different points. The critical point here is the lack of technologically advanced system of transportation and storage. Several kinds of agricultural produce cannot be even processed or stored in cold storages forcing their disposal at throw-away prices or even spoilage.
Evidently, even if the amount of food waste were curbed to just 15-20 per cent, Bangladesh would be far better off in terms of food availability for its people. When household squander accounts for 60 per cent of the total waste, it could be brought down to a 10-15 per cent if people become aware of the colossal waste at the national level. The rural-urban divide in the pattern of food waste can throw some light on this problem. In rural areas of middle-income countries, according to the Food Waste Index Report (FWIR), people in villages waste less. One of the explanations of this is that they feed food scraps to pet animals or livestock and also engage in home composting.
In urban centres, pets and livestock are unlikely to be available for feeding. In that case, the best way is to prepare food as prudently as possible. In case households have unused food and restaurants are left with unsold food at the end of the day, a charity network can be developed for collection of the extra food for distribution among the needy. In some advanced countries, such a collection and distribution system run by charities has been highly successful. Even then if some food remains uncollected, it can be used for composting rather than throwing away with garbage.
According to the FWIR, food waste generates 8.0-10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and it takes as much as 30 per cent of the total agricultural land to produce that amount of food. Given the energy, land resource, water, money and investment of other inputs, this is meaningless squandering of precious ingredients for food production. At a time when the world is facing disastrous climate change and millions are going hungry, nations cannot afford such losses of food. They need to devise better technologies to preserve the food they produce and frame national policies to reduce food waste at the household and other levels to the bare minimum possible.