Participants of a programme on ‘Global Hunger Index – Indian Scenario and Food Production, Requirement and Wastage’ at the Bharathidasan University undertook a pledge at the end not to waste food and expressed resolve to help the hungry .
After taking part in the seminar organised recently by the Department of Women’s Studies, faculty members and students of other departments and affiliated colleges, and members of women self-help groups spelt ‘Save the Food and Feed the Poor’ as the slogan, and committed their support to promote and propagate activities on hunger elimination.
V. Rajagopal, Former Director, Central Plantation Crop Research Institute, Kasargode, and president, Society for Hunger Elimination, Tirupathi, spoke on causes of hunger, the impoverished section of population, global hunger index and categories, scenario of hunger index in India and sustainable solutions to eliminate hunger. Stating that 14 per cent of the world population suffer from different kinds of hunger: undernourishment, malnutrition, acute malnutrition and hidden hunger, he cited as causes inadequate quantity and poor quality of food, poor access to food and other consumables, lack of shelter and infrastructure to prepare food, scarcity of potable water, insufficient money to buy food, unaffordable cost of food items for poor people, high level of poverty.
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Going by the components used to calculate global hunger index: proportion of undernourished population, prevalence of underweight children below five years, and proportion of children dying before the age of five years, India has been categorised under ‘alarming hunger’, and placed between Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe. India performs poorly in terms of indicators such as underweight children and mortality, Mr.Rajagopal said, observing that just 10 per cent of the IPL earnings could feed 13 million people with acute hunger. He mooted floating of hunger elimination fund. Twenty five to 30 crore of the population go to bed daily with chronic hunger, he said.
Millions could be fed also by avoiding wastage of dry grains and seeds in godowns to the extent of 20 to 30 per cent, fresh vegetables and fruits (10 to 15 per cent), and processed food (25 to 30 per cent), Mr. Rajagopal said.