Few chapters on food wastage could be included in the syllabus of educational institutions. K V Thomas, minister of state for agriculture (independent charge), consumer affairs, food & public distribution, has written to state education ministers for including food wastage as a topic in the syllabus of school and college students.

Checking food wastage is an important step ahead for obtaining self-sufficiency in the country. With the impending National Food Security Act, it had become extremely important to take constructive action in this direction. "At least 15-20% food is wasted in pilferage and almost 20-30% prepared food is wasted. If that is avoided it would be a big sail for the country and the ministry," Thomas said.

Thomas applauded his ministry for bringing down the level of wastage in food grains from 2.5% to 0.03% in the last five years.

He said that his ministry had decided to bring down the level of wastage by self-restraint. He now looked forward to taking constructive steps like making food wastage part of syllabus, creating consumer awareness and going for modernisation of warehouses. Regulation would be the last resort for the ministry, Thomas informed.

"We have to invest in agriculture, modernisation, procurement, storage, transportation and public distribution system," he said.

Thomas said that curtailing exports for increasing the procurement of food was no solution as food could not be stored for a long time and had to be distributed. Also, currently the country has storage capacity for 63 million tonnes for food grains and the ministry plans to add another 1 million tonnes in two years. It also has plans to set up silos of capacity two million tonnes.