Global Hunger Index: India’s real problem is not hunger but loss and wastage of food

By: Anshul Vipat

How is it that the global leader in food grain production has one of the largest food deprived population in India? We at India Tracker, explain it below.

The recently released Global Hunger Index has generated a lot of noise. India is ranked 107 out of 121 countries well below its neighbouring countries, with its child wasting rate at 19.3 per cent, being the highest in the world. In Asia, Afghanistan with a rank of 109 is the only country behind India. About 16.3 per cent of Indians are undernourished, and about one in every three children is stunted, meaning the proportion of children under 5 years with lower height for age.

This is despite India largest being the largest producer of sugar, milk, pulses, bananas, and second-largest producer of wheat, rice, and vegetables in the world. It is also a major producer of livestock products.

So how is it that the global leader in food grain production has one of the largest food deprived population in India? We at IndiaTracker, explain it below.

The broken food chain

Before food reaches the plate, it travels from the farmer to wholesalers, retailers, and sometimes processors. At every stage, some proportion of crop production is lost. This is where the problem lies.

A study conducted by ICAR-CIPHET (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology on 45 crops reveals a very worrying data. As per the report, anywhere between 1 per cent (in the case of milk) to 16 percent (guava, for instance) of the agricultural produce is lost by the time it reaches the retailer. In case of large produces like potato, it is 9 percent, while for peas it is 32 percent.  Most of the losses according to the study happens at the farmer level. In the case of mango, the total loss was 9.16 percent. Here also, the loss at farm operations was much higher at 6.92 percent than the loss in storage at 2.24 percent. The loss in guava was 15.88 percent while the same in the case of apple was 10.39 percent.

Source: CIPHET

The estimate loss on grains like wheat and paddy is much more. About 4.55 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of wheat gets lost in the system up until it reaches the retailer. The study estimated the total volume of losses for all commodities to be about Rs 92,651 crore.

According to https://thewire.in/agriculture/india-agricultural-produce-wastedEstimates of Value of Output (Central Statistical Organisation, 2016), the value of production of horticulture in 2012-13 was Rs 2,84,000 crore while the estimate of losses was about Rs 31,500 crore. This comes to about 11 percent.  The value of production of livestock in 2012-13 was Rs 5.08 lakh crore while the estimate of losses was Rs 19,000 crore.

The official figures of the government is even more worrying. In 2019, in a reply to Loksabha, the government revealed that 16 percent of fruits and vegetables being wasted every year. Up to 10 percent oilseeds, pulses and cereals grown in India are also completely wasted .In 2018-19, more than 52,13,360 kg of food grains were wasted or had rotten, causing an estimated loss of Rs 72,033,224. State-wise, Maharashtra topped the chart in damaged food grains in FCI godown with 8,191 tonnes. More than 6,000 tonnes of food grain was damaged in Jammu and Kashmir, while nearly 7,109 MT of food grains were damaged in Odisha and 2,262 MT in Andhra Pradesh during the same period of time.

Unfortunately, the government does not hold any official data on food wastages. The studies conducted by government agencies are also quite old. Nevertheless, this analysis helps highlight a low-hanging problem and a solution to India’s problem of hunger and malnutrition.