When one thinks of the environment, the cost of generating food and wastage is hardly ever considered. That is why the theme for this year’s World Environment Day is Think. Eat. Save. Reduce our Foodprint, which is especially pertinent for India where 40 per cent of food is wasted every year, while millions go hungry.
At a function to mark the Day, Lise Grande, UN Resident Co-ordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, India, said it was ironic that the highest wastage of food took place in developing countries. “The tragedy is that when so many people go hungry, so much food is wasted,” she said, adding that globally one-third of all the food produced in the world is not even eaten and a billion people across the globe are still undernourished.
She said the environmental cost of this wastage was phenomenal, given all the resources, such as power, water, fertilisers and others, used to produce them. About 44 per cent of India’s geographic area is under food cultivation, 80 per cent of deforestation occurs because of agriculture, 30 per cent of greenhouse gases are produced in this sector and 70 per cent of water is used in agriculture.
So, in effect, inefficient food production and wastage leads to a massive wastage of resources as well.
Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of Environment and Forests, emphasised the need to stop pitting environment and development against one another as there could be no development without environment.
The Ministry has been criticised for holding up development due to slow clearances for projects, such as mines and roads.
She added that India’s development had to be sustainable and environment concerns span across the boundaries of ministries and departments.
“There can be no sustainable development unless we dispel the myth that environment is an obstacle in the path of progress,” Natarajan said here on Wednesday.