Hunger – A Silent Killer

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number two is ZERO HUNGER by 2030. It is estimated that about 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world that is one out of nine people were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2014 – 2016. Almost all the hungry people, 780 million, live in developing countries. This represents 12.9 percent or one in eight of the population of developing countries (FAO, 2015).

According to Wikipedia, Hunger is a condition in which a person for a sustained period is unable to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs. Throughout history, portions of the world’s population have often experienced sustained periods of hunger. This is caused by war, plagues, poverty, adverse weather, etc. The 2016 Global Hunger Index score Ghana 13.9 (IFPRI, 2016). This indicates an improvement in the hunger situation as compared to 15.5 in 2015. According to WFP, 2009, Hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined yet no or less attention is given to it.

A Report from the FAO-World bank, 2010, suggests that one third of the food produced globally gets lost or wasted .This represents a loss of 1.3 billion tons of food per year. Food goes waste at every stage in the food system from the farming to processing to retail and to our homes.

Food Waste refers to food that is of good quality and fit for human consumption but does not get consumed because it is discarded –either before or after it spoils. It normally, but not exclusively occurs at the retail and consumption stages in the food supply chain and is the result of negligence or a conscious decision to throw food away (World Resources Institute).This is when edible products are sorted out by the retailers due to quality, those that are found to be of low quality are rejected regardless of their suitability for human consumption .In addition, when edible products get spilled or damaged in market they are throw out. Confusing date labels leads grocery stores and consumers to discard good food. The Food and Beverage Association of Ghana estimates show its members loss over GH₵200,000 every month to food waste (FOOD FOR ALL AFRICA)

Households also contribute to food waste when food or products purchased are not eaten or use and also when food cooked are not eaten. Restaurants and hotels are other stakeholders who also contribute to food waste because of the large portions served to customers, since not all is consumed, the rest will end up in the garbage bin. Visit any land fill sites and you will see more food is dumped than paper, plastic, metal and glass.

In Ghana, 1 out of 4 children goes to bed hungry (UNICEF, 2015) at the time when 35 percent of food produce in the country goes waste or uneaten. This suggest Ghanaians throw out of $8.9 billion each year. The cost of hunger as reported by the National Development Planning Commission in 2016 shows that Ghana loses GH 4.6 billion which is equivalent to 6.4 percent of GDP annually to hunger among children and 24 percent of all child mortality associated with under nutrition(FOOD FOR ALL AFRICA)

An important approach or strategy to address this problem in Ghana is FOOD RECOVERY.

Food recovery is the collection of edible food by the poor or for distribution to the poor and hungry. It is the volunteering given out of food to charitable organizations. This strategy applies at the production stage with crops that would go unharvest, at the manufacturing stage with overproduced products and at the distribution and market stage with food left unsold at stores and markets. Therefore food recovery represent an important part of the food system by closing the food loop.

Restaurants, Retailers, Hotels, Farms and Households should donate their surplus or excess food to charitable organizations who will distribute it among community that hunger and malnutrition are most prevalent. These charitable organizations take the food and sort, inspect and repack it to distribute to the poor and hunger. These excess food donated by the donors are in good shape and good for consumption and not harmful to the consumers. Eliminating hunger is a moral issue. The bible talk about it in Leviticus 23:22 “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest , neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger”. Apart from feeding the poor, food recovery also help in the finance of the donors companies by reducing the cost of waste collection because food will not go the garbage bins but rather on the plates of poor people. In Italy, practicing food recovery save 550 million tons of food every year and also Feeding America, a food recovery organization provided 289 million pounds of food in 2016 to the poor in America. Connecting hungry people with available food will help combat hunger in Ghana and accelerate Ghana’s effort in achieving the UN Sustainable development Goal 2.