Food Wastage in Indonesia

Humans sometimes selfishly think only of themselves. Eating is a basic human needs. But what happens if the food itself threatens the lives of living things? Without guilt, humans just throw away leftover food. Do you know the worst effects of human selfishness? Global warming is a reward due to continuous food waste.

Do you know the surprising fact that Indonesia is one of the highest waste or food waste producing countries in the world? Within one year, 13 million tons of waste is created. That number can actually meet the needs of food 28 million people who live in poverty in the country.

What could be the causes of the large amount of food waste that occur in Indonesia? Public consumption patterns that are still centred on how much the food portion is a factor why food waste in Indonesia accumulates. Although it should be based on calorie needs of daily intake. In addition to consumption patterns, the production process to distribution can also make food forced to be disposed of even before it reaches the consumer.

Ironically, in Indonesia, with a population of around 250 million people requires around 190 million tons of food each year. But as many as 13 million metric tons of food was wasted. This amount should be able to meet almost 11% of Indonesia's population, or around 28 million poor people each year. This was stated by the Head of Representative of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) for Indonesia and Timor Leste, Mark Smulders.

Out of the 25 G20 member states plus Nigeria, Ethiopia, Colombia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates which are assessed, Indonesia is the second largest food waste country after Saudi Arabia. On average, everyone in Indonesia throws up to 300 kg of food per year. In comparison, Americans waste around 209-250 pounds of food every year. Whereas Singapore throw almost 600 thousand tons of food on yearly basis. Other than that, Japan and Australia throw a quarter of total food volume and each food has the fantastic value of 6 billion dollar.

Food Waste Infographic

Intensive food production and consumption have indeed increased food availability, but on the other hand have negative environmental impacts such as land degradation, climate change, water scarcity and the obesity epidemic.

It is believed that customer education plays major role in this, for them to be able to read labels of food expiry date. Reduction of food losses by buying fresh ingredients in adequate amount, proper storage of food supply, cook accordingly, separate and store excess food, donate food which is still edible, start composting.

There is a social movement called Hunger Bank which was established to help reduce food waste while alleviating hunger. The trick is to distribute excess food to the poor.

While of course, the most important thing is to seek for solutions when it comes to problems. But prevention of the problem should be the way to effectively solve the problem itself.

To achieve it, it is everyone duty and responsibility to create a better environmental society. It would not harm anyone to have a better environment which are cleaner and healthier. Let’s start to change from ourselves!

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References

Food Waste Infographic. (2018). Retrieved from http://foodsustainability.eiu.com/food-loss-and-waste/

Indonesia Second Largest Food Waster | Jakarta Globe. (2018). Retrieved from https://jakartaglobe.id/business/indonesia-second-largest-food-waster/

Lemos, L. (2018). What a waste: Indonesia’s struggle with food waste. Retrieved from http://blog.winnowsolutions.com/what-a-waste-indonesias-struggle-with-food-waste

SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/save-food

Steer, A., & Fan, S. (2018). 3 Steps for Tackling Food Loss and Waste | WRI Indonesia. Retrieved from https://wri-indonesia.org/en/blog/3-steps-tackling-food-loss-and-waste