Over 30% of food lost or wasted in S Asian nations each year: WB India chief

Gandhinagar: Over 30% of the food is lost or wasted every year in South Asian countries, resulting in jobs lost in food processing, logistics and waste management, besides reducing exports, said Paul Procee, World Bank acting country director for India. Procee was speaking at an event held to shape a strategy for advancing India’s and overall South Asia’s food processing sector, in Ahmedabad, on Tuesday.

Speaking at the two-day workshop, 'Unlocking Value: Advancing food processing for employment generation and sustainable growth in South Asia’ Procee said, “In India, the challenge is not just to grow more, it is to add more value, more resilience and more good jobs to what is already produced. Food processing sits at the centre of that transformation. It is the bridge between farms and markets.”

The workshop has been organized by the Union ministry for food processing industries (MoFPI) and South Asian Policy Leadership for Improved Nutrition and Growth (SAPLING) with support from the Gates Foundation and the World Bank. About 200 representatives from govts, the private sector and research centres from countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives attended the workshop.

“I believe our discussions should focus on answers to three big questions — How to reduce losses where they are the highest? How to attract more private sector investment? And how to ensure that the result creates more and better jobs,” Procee said.

Speaking at the event, Chirag Paswan, Union minister for food processing industries, said that while increasing production remained the focus, adding value to produce has generally been neglected since Independence. “It breaks my heart to see farmers throwing their produce or selling it at very cheap rates because of lack of holding capacity. The challenge of food wastage can be addressed effectively with food processing,” he said.

Commenting on what he called “negative narrative”, Paswan said that certain social media influencers have been spreading a narrative that processed food is harmful for health. “I have created a committee of stakeholders to tackle this issue with a positive and truthful campaign about food processing. Food processing is about increasing value. The sector is being impacted because of a false narrative,” he said.

State minister Jitu Vaghani said that Gujarat has made a representation to the Union govt to set up a National Institute for Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) in the state. In response, Paswan said that there are two functional NIFTEMs — in Haryana and in Tamil Nadu, while a third has been sanctioned for Bihar. “My ministry aims to have more such institutes set up across the country,” he said.