THE losses incurred by a growing waste of food — before, during and after the harvest of agricultural produces — stand to threaten food security. A government study, Estimation of Overall Food Losses and Waste at all Levels of the Food Chain that the horticulture department of the Bangladesh Agricultural University conducted and made public in June 2021, shows that the waste takes places in farm crops and livestock produces mainly in the absence of proper storage, processing and distribution facilities. As for onions, the loss accounts for 28 per cent — about 25 per cent in the absence of proper preservation and about 3 per cent for the use of traditional harvesting tools. The study estimates the total annual loss of rice, also taking into account pre-harvest loss mainly because of rodents, to be in the ranges of 23–28 per cent, which includes 14.02 per cent at farmer’s level — 1.4 per cent during transport, 1.7 per cent during threshing, 1.5 per cent during winnowing, 2.6 per cent during drying and 6.8 per cent during storage. The percentage of loss is 1.62 at the intermediaries and 2.12 per cent at the millers. The figure, however, excludes the loss that take place during the polishing of grains, which has been opposed in recent years, estimated at about 1.6 million tonnes a year.
Post-harvest losses in wheat production account for 17.59 per cent. Post-harvest losses in a select group of horticultural producers range from 17 per cent to 32 per cent. As for tomato production, about 10 per cent loss is reported to be taking place because of growers’ unwillingness to harvest the produce as prices decline steeply towards the end of the season. In animal products, losses account for 8.07 per cent in cow milk, 15.67 per cent in buffalo milk. Post-harvest losses in eggs account for 12.9 per cent, in poultry meat 16.9 per cent and in red meat 21.4 per cent. Food waste also takes places in households, with an average of 82 kilograms of food being wasted a household a year. Experts, therefore, believe that the food losses, which are a gross market failure, are worrying in view of food security. Bangladesh imported food worth $8.25 billion in the 2023 financial year. It imported 12 million tonnes of food n 2021 whilst it produced 93 million tonnes of food. And, experts believe that the import could have been substantially minimised if there had been a national strategy in place to improve storage for perishable agricultural produces as the public and private initiatives that are in place are far from being adequate, warranting government attention to a horde of issues.
The government should, in such a situation, work out a national strategy on food loss reduction with a focus on resolving issues that cause food losses before, during and after harvest. The government should move towards modern agricultural tools, improved storage, transport and distribution facilities and the creation of awareness among people of food losses in households to bolster food security. The government also needs to do this to meet Sustainable Development Goal 12 of halving per capita food waste by 2030.