Food loss and waste are emerging as a new global challenge with far-reaching implications. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, around 33 per cent of all food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted across the food value chain — from production to consumption. This figure is even higher, exceeding 40pc, for highly perishable fruits and vegetables.
Ironically, in addition to this, Pakistan faces another form of food loss where thousands of farmers deliberately rotavate (destroy) their mature, fruit-bearing vegetable crops almost every year. Unfortunately, this significant food loss has not been documented or accounted for in any analysis.
When a vegetable crop is cultivated on an excessively large area, exceeding the overall requirements of domestic and foreign (if any) markets, prices often plummet to such dismal levels during peak harvesting days that they fail to cover even the costs of harvesting labour, packaging, and transportation to the market.
As a result, farmers are left with no choice but to destroy their crops. This seemingly drastic measure is actually a rational response to the financial realities they face.
In a food-insecure country, farmers deliberately destroy hundreds of thousands of tonnes of crop
The high perishability of vegetables, the underdeveloped value-added industry that can process them for later consumption, and the limited availability of temperature-controlled storage facilities — with their prohibitive rental charges — are among the primary factors contributing to the market glut.
Driven entirely by the dynamics of demand........