KARACHI: Around 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year around the globe which amounts to $1 trillion while the world food production for human consumption is 3.9 billion tons.

Only one quarter of all wasted food could feed the 795 million undernourished people around the world who suffer from hunger. The world produces enough food to feed all seven billion people but due to uneven distribution around one billion remain undernourished and two billion people suffer from hidden hunger. Zero hunger could save lives of 3.1m children a year.

These views were expressed by Dr Abid Jalaluddin Shaikh, provincial programme manager Food Fortification Programme Nutrition International Pakistan on Wednesday.

He was speaking to a seminar held at the Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Karachi.

The department organised a food exhibition and a seminar to mark World Food Day. The department also arranged panel discussions to shed light on the issue and how to overcome the problem with minimum efforts.

He shared that some 795m people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life whereas around 780m of those people live in developing regions.

Dr Shaikh said that 66m primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world with 23m in Africa alone.

Within every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases. In Pakistan, anaemia, iron and zinc deficiency, and Vitamin A and D deficiency are the most common diseases among children under the age of five years.

The chairperson, Department of Food Science and Technology, KU, Dr Shahina Naz expressed that it is unfortunate that while humans have reached the moon, explored the deepest ocean, split the atom, and mapped human genome and other extraordinary achievements, we are still talking about the possibility of zero hunger by 2030.

She informed the audience that every country in the world is affected by one or more forms of malnutrition. Owing to undernutrition 45 per cent people are underweight while micronutrient deficiency causes improper growth and inactive life whereas 41m people die every year due to obesity.

Dr Naz said that 6.7 billion ton of milk is wasted and fish production is one million ton per year but per capita consumption is only two kilograms in Pakistan. The country has 8,000 edible plant species of which 600 species are with nutritive and have medical value whereas some wild fruits have better nutritive value than cultivated crops.

Assistant Professor at the food science department Dr S.M. Ghufran Saeed said that world hunger is on the rise again after a period of decline. He mentioned that conflicts, extreme weather events linked to climate change, economic slowdown, rapid increase in overweight and obesity levels are revising progress made in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

He shared that 1.9bn people, more than a quarter of the world’s population, is overweight of which 3.4m people die each year due to being overweight.

KU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi said that hunger and malnutrition are no doubt very serious issues. The speakers and panellists had highlighted the root causes and suggested some doable remedies to overcome the problems.

He hoped that policymakers, government bodies, food producers, manufacturers, agencies related to food security and safety, consumers and academia would work together to find out the ways to eradicate hunger from the country and reduce the malnutrition problems.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2019