The five problem areas in the food systems space on which I want to develop my career.

I think all the problems in the food systems space are interlinked, like a vicious circle. Solving one problem will solve problems that are caused by it. And also, solving one problem means solving problems that caused it.

One of my early drive to enter the food sector was to end hunger (1).

As a child, whenever I wasted food, my mother used to scold me saying "You should be grateful that you could eat food. There are children who are dying with hunger in this world". Then I would go "then we should feed them". To which she would reply, "Its not practical to feed them all now, is it? why don't you eat what you have, grow healthy, study well, and find a way to feed them all?". But I never thought I would end up building my career in food field, but now that I have, I can be a bigger part of the global effort to end hunger.

To be honest I was blank at first when I asked myself, how does hunger affect the planet? But then realised that when we say impact on the planet, It actually means impact on our habitat. Anything that threatens our survival in this planet is considered a negative impact on the planet.

Food waste (2) is a cause of hunger. One of the direct impact on planet due to food waste is the release of GHGs. But food waste also means that the resources like land, water, energy, capital, and mental and physical efforts that went into making of that food is also wasted. Also most of the food we produce comes from monoculture which leads to biodiversity loss (3).

Biodiversity loss will reduce the number of various kinds of plants, animals and microorganisms, that are essential for pollination, soil fertility, cleaning water, etc. I can't think of a planet where there are only plants, animals and microorganisms that we humans grow. Having a rich biodiversity means more resilience against the uncertainties posed, for example by climate change (4).

I don't think there is a need for me to explain the impacts of climate change on our habitat, because it is very evident and we all see it. But the extent climate change affects the lives of people varies immensely. For some it is just the change in the duration of different seasons, but for some it is the change in availability of food. Climate change has caused a reduction of crop yield, difficulty in irrigation, rise in natural disasters etc. In fact my home land Kerala, suffered the worst flood in nearly a century, in 2018. The kind of destruction landslides, it caused could have been minimised if we hadn't cleared the hill forests to make room for buildings, monoculture, etc.

Another area that interests me is Package pollution (5). Food packaging is important to protect food and avoid spoilage, mechanical damage, etc. But, plastic packaging has been pilling up both in land and water. Humans, animals and plants are being impacted by the toxins released by it. Plastic packages make their way from rich countries to developing countries like mine, where they pile up and cause pollution.