India's Battle With Hunger: How Gender Gap, Food Loss, Wastage And Poverty Are Fuelling The Food Crisis

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India is a country that produces surplus food every year and yet it is the largest contributor of undernourished people across the world, says Worldometer. With around 194.4 million people, or 14.37% of its population not receiving enough nutrition.

According to the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI), India ranks 107th out of 121 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2022 GHI scores. With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is quite serious.

So, why can't India provide food security to all its citizens?

Well, you won't have to look far to understand the food crisis. Start by looking at your own plate of food and know that when you waste a portion of it, somewhere someone bears the brunt of your action and goes to bed hungry. So, it is safe to say that, having food every day is a privilege not everyone can afford in this county.

Believe it or not, according to an analysis by a humanitarian organisation, CARE revealed for the first time, that there is a global link between gender inequality and food insecurity. When data from 2021 was analysed, the report showed that across 109 countries, as gender inequality goes up, food security goes down.

What Is Hunger?

Hunger is a distress that is associated with a lack of food and can refer to as undernourishment.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food deprivation, or undernourishment means the habitual (or chronic) consumption of very too few calories to provide the minimum dietary energy an individual requires to live a healthy and productive life, given that person's sex, age, stature, and physical activity level. At its most extreme, hunger can lead to starvation and famine.

In the Global Hunger Index reports, "hunger" refers to the index based on the four component indicators - undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality.

Gender Disparity In Food: Women Are Hungrier Than Men Is What Numbers Say

It is appalling to see how cultural norms decide who gets fed first!

A report by Feeding India, by Zomato, a food delivery app, revealed that 690 million people are hungry, 60% of them are women. This means in Indian households, it is women who first bear the brunt of hunger even though they work hard to secure food for their families.

All of this is a result of gender disparity that begins from unspoken traditional household laws which demand females to save the lion's share of the food for men, followed by children and other members. So, the women are expected to feed themselves with the leftover food.

In the World Bank Gender Data Portal on food and women, the only sex-disaggregated food data is related to the number of women who believe or do not believe, that a husband beating his wife is justified when she burns the food.

Further, a survey done by India Human Development in 2011 revealed that among married women aged between 15 to 49 yrs, one in five women in Delhi and half of the women in Uttar Pradesh said they ate after men did. This implies the grim scenario of Indian households, where the limited food budget and non-availability of refrigerators to store leftover food means, the person (mostly women) who eats last very often will get less or lower quality of food than people who eat before her.

Till the present day, there are unequal norms of food distribution within households, but due to education, employment of women, and urbanization, slowly the food disparity is fading away. However, consistent neglect by females when it comes to their own nutrition, and prioritising their family's needs over their own is a practice that needs to change.

This can lead to malnutrition in girls and women, high rates of neonatal mortality, low-weight babies and less productivity in female workers.

How Does Food Loss And Wastage Contribute To The Crisis?

Apart from the gender gap in food, two other factors are responsible for the food crisis in India, i.e., food loss and wastage. Also, poverty is a very big role to play when it comes to the state of hunger in this country.

According to the Food Waste Index 2021, 931 million tons of food have been wasted worldwide, with 61% coming from households, 26% from food services, and 13% from retail. One-third of all food in India is wasted or gets spoilt before it is eaten, says FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) report and as per the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021, household food waste in India is estimated to be around 50 kg per person annually, or 68.76 million tonnes.

Wasting a plate of food can also mean wasting energy, water, harvest, transport, package and effort that went into growing the produce. Also, when that food is thrown in a dustbin and then gets dumped into landfills, the rotting foods release methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

This gas that is emitted by human activities not only has a direct influence on climate but also indirectly affects human health, health, crop yields and the quality and productivity of vegetation, says Climate and Clean Air Coalition portal. Due to this illnesses such as Asthma, birth deformities, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, childhood cancer, COPD, infectious diseases, low birth weight and preterm delivery, etc. can creep into our lives very easily.

Food wastage not only affects the environment but also society and the economy. Several reports have pointed out that, one-third of the food that is produced across the globe is either lost or wasted.

Why Is Hunger The After-Effect of Poverty?

Poverty is one of the primary causes of hunger in India. In a nation where more than 20% percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 per day, affording nutritious food becomes a struggle. Also, lack of access to food adds to their misery, especially in rural parts of India. This hugely impacts children and therefore, data has revealed that more than 20.8% of children under 5 in India are underweight and 37.9% have had stunted growth.

Due to the power misuse by the wealthier community on the economically backward section of society and poor government policies, the rise of population, inflation, less utilization of resources, unequal distribution of income, lack of capital and able entrepreneurship, religious reasons, political reasons and others, poverty is widespread in this country.

This has a direct impact on the food security of certain people. Astonishingly, in India, there are no official statistics when it comes to starvation-related deaths.