There are two types of people: people who are rich and affluent who possess a callous attitude towards the wastage of food and only want to buy what is termed as the ?best amongst the rest?, and those people who are starving of hunger and hardly have anything to eat. Why don?t they get enough food? Let me tell you this that we waste almost 1.3 billion tons of food every year.?why?? Because it is not appealing to the eye. Most of the consumers buy what is perceived as to be appealing to the sensation of vision not what is appealing to the sensation of taste. Due to this more than half of the food that is produced does not even make it to the grocery stores.

I got the opportunity of raising awareness in an initiative of ?Blue Planet Green People? in partnership with ?Ministry of Environment and Water? in reducing food wastage. It got launched as ?I?MPERFECT?, a national campaign to reduce food waste across the UAE, as 20- 40% of food goes to waste due to its shape, size, colour or appearance. I witnessed the event in which the Minister of Environment and Water, Dr Rashid bin Fahad, had announced the launch of ?I?MPERFECT, developed in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on October 19, 2015, at the Times Square Centre in Dubai.

We contributed in the initiative by showcasing different banners, strip, presentation, writing the blog (what we are doing with the knowledge of imperfect food), logo, poster and so on at our stall that we had set up in the event. I raise awareness by telling my friends, family and community members that imperfect food is as good and healthy as perfect one. Do you know before imperfect produce reach the market, it is rejected not because of quality but because supermarkets want vegetables packaged to be in the same shape, size and colour. So even before the produce leaves farms a large portion is set aside of Pale and misshapen tomatoes, crooked cucumber and capsicum, ugly carrots and so on. This campaign aims to ask customers Don?t you think these deserve a second chance and aims to put them on your dinner plate.

This campaign aims to support local production, teach farmers how to harvest imperfect produce and educate the public. This event was attended by ministers and representatives of the UN and I got a chance to speak in front of them. This complement the World Food Day?s theme for 2015 of ?Social Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty. The UAE plays an important role in the global eradication of poverty and hunger through humanitarian and development aid. In fact, the UAE has been crowned the world's top humanitarian donor in 2014. The number of people going hungry remains the largest. The financial losses of food wastage amount to trillion dollars and on top of this we are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, pollutants and others wastes.

Growing fruits and vegetables require an ample amount of resources including water, fertilizers, energy in the form of running machines, etc. But if the destiny of the vegetables is to just go to the landfills, then what is the use of wasting all these resources for their production. The so called second grade produce or imperfect produce is as healthy and nutritious as perfectly good looking produce. To make the food appealing, farmers inject chemicals into it so that it becomes finely shaped and colourful so it is believed imperfect to be healthier and tastier than the good-looking food.

So dear friends, what would you prefer to buy?something that is appealing to the eyeball or something that saves the resources of the country and helps to eradicate hunger? Only thing that we all have to do is to change the mindset of the consumers by raising awareness.