Full Plate: Reducing food wastage to ensure food security for everyone

Abhishek Ranjan, Ayur Gillurkar, Dhruvin Bhuva, Praveen Nahar, and Sahil Thappa

The world today has enough food to feed 10 billion people, with a global population of close to 8 billion, and there is enough food for everyone. Yet, as per World Health Organization, more than 690 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger. Food security is one of the biggest challenges that the world is facing today, and millions of children around the world suffer from acute malnourishment during the most critical development period in their life. Food scarcity is not just due to the unavailability of food, rather, it is a mixed effect of man-made conflicts, political instability, and weather-related events like famine, drought, etc. Small farmers, herders, and fishermen produce about 70 per cent of the global food supply. Yet, they are especially vulnerable to food security – poverty and hunger are most acute among the rural populations.

Nearly 1/3rd of the total food produced worldwide is wasted; right from the stage of harvesting, preparation, and distribution to consumption, food is getting wasted at each stage. India, despite being one of the largest food producers, ranks 101 out of 116 countries in the global hunger index 2021.

We need a multi-directional approach; it requires a change at each step of the food cycle, from making sustainable food choices to minimizing food wastage during cooking and supporting local farmers.

Through this project, we intend to create a world where every plate is full.