“The food insecurity crisis is here to stay”

By: Guadalupe Galván/El Universal/GDA

Just over 40% of the population in Latin America goes hungry. At the same time, about 24% of the population is obese. Covid-19, and now the war between Russia and Ukraine, have aggravated the problem of food security in the region and time is running out to find solutions, he warns, in an interview with Grupo de Diarios América (GDA)*, when which “El Comercio” belongs to, Mario Lubetkin, Deputy Director General and Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). LOOK:

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The problem of hunger, he stresses, is not isolated. Poverty, education, migration, even violence are related, and require comprehensive solutions and getting Latin America to act with one voice and seek what has been called “food sovereignty.”

What is the current situation in the region in terms of food security?

A. It is nothing new to say that the situation is not positive. We live in a scenario of significant risks and the numbers are the most important testimony. While in the world, according to our reports, the global numbers for 2021 give 828 million people who suffer from hunger, in Latin America, there are 56.5 or 56.6 million. If we add the people who suffer from hunger with the people who have moderate food insecurity, we are referring to more than 200 million people, which represents a little more than 40% of the population in Latin America.

It is a great contradiction, if one thinks that Latin America and the Caribbean would have a food production capacity for 1.3 billion people.

What cannot be limited is the analysis of food security without addressing the issue of malnutrition… The issue of food security today has production, environmental, climate change, social, commercial, foreign trade, and development components. territorial, socioeconomic…

Q. But at the same time we face the problem of obesity

A. About 24% of the population in Latin America is obese or overweight. But the biggest drama is that of the population under five years of age: 7.5% of them are obese or overweight…

Q. Why are these obesity problems seen today that were not seen before?

R. First, because one eats poorly. There is a consumption problem. There is a health problem. It’s a string of things.

Healthy diet is expensive. According to our data, the value of the daily healthy diet is 3.89 dollars (72.39 Mexican pesos). It is slightly higher than the world average. But it’s not just a cost issue… Quality has a higher cost. But it is also an educational problem, of understanding what is being consumed, of the health issue.

Q. To this we must add the issue of the impact of Covid-19, first, and the war between Russia and Ukraine, then

A. We are already seeing the effects of Covid-19, and there is one aspect that is still not clear to us: the effects of the war.

In Latin America, we said, there are 56 million who suffer from hunger. If we think about the numbers before 2019, before Covid-19, there was an increase of 30%. And still the stage is not over.

From the point of view of food production guarantees, we still do not know what effects the war will generate for Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is clear that we are 85% dependent on imported fertilizers, which come from there, from where the war is taking place. Most of Russia, Ukraine. We do not know what level of production they will have… There is a significant dependence, in the Latin American countries, on cereals; corn, for example.

There will be a push to increase prices. There is going to be a problematic transportation system… If we add to that the war scenarios and the political theme, a series of explosive elements are generated. Objectively, you have to prepare. That is the challenge of this Latin America and the Caribbean.

Q. Seeing how the issue of Covid-19 was dealt with, is the region prepared for what is coming with the issue of war?

A. You have to first understand what it means to be prepared: replace fertilizers, create a higher food capacity, reduce the importation of cereals…

In the short term, these things cannot be resolved… In December, at the request of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), we held a meeting of Latin American Agriculture Ministers. The feeling that he gave me, due to the interventions of the ministers, was that the position is to seek solutions. In other historical times, it was easier to say: ‘It’s his fault.’ Today we know that this does not help.

But what I see is an effort that the vast majority of governments are making to find solutions. Sure, the solutions are partial. For example, there is a lack of dialogue between countries… What happened to Covid? That each one sought his own solution. Today everyone is looking for their own solution to the issue of food security… We must go for the integration of countries in the search for food security guarantees. The Caribbean 100% mattered. Now they are setting themselves a tremendous challenge: to reduce 25% of imports. It means starting to produce food, even if it is 25%. That is a tremendous change.

This Latin America has different faces, but a different integration process can guarantee the win-win and greater balance. Integration must be done in this region, between us. The public and private sectors have to participate… With Covid-19 we realized how fragile we were and at a certain point the discussion was: ‘We have to make our own vaccines.’

Now there is talk of food sovereignty. The governments that say this refer to our capacity to produce, but it cannot be local production capacity, but integrated.

Q. Is there a willingness on the part of the governments to listen, to go further?

A. I think so. The vast majority of governments are seriously looking for a solution. Let’s start with a key element: the food insecurity crisis is here to stay. The depth that the solutions require a lot of time. The search may be better or worse, but it is serious.

Q. Is inflation another concern?

R. We launched the first post-war report at the end of March and it took a brutal leap; prices increased 13 or 14%. Speculation was that it was going to shoot more. But all of our subsequent reports showed that there hasn’t been a huge price increase… It’s not a brutal escalation. Food inflation in Latin America is 11%, more or less, while globally it represents 8 or 9%. It is not what is completely moving the balance. The issue is in the capacity for greater dialogue between governments.

In December we made a proposal: to adapt the San-CELAC (Food Security) plan, which was approved in 2015. The adaptation proposal was authorized in January.

This adaptation could make it possible to have, before the crisis generated, a new food security platform that gives countries instruments to direct their policies based on their own characteristics.

We are in a new scenario, in which the first line of government management has marked a very great concern on the issue of food safety. That was not considered before.

I think there are signs of change. Maybe messy, chaotic, but there is no paralysis of movement. Will he go on the right track? Will we find the solution? It is where we are pushing.

Q. The issue of food security cannot be separated from other problems such as poverty, education, and it becomes a kind of vicious circle. How do you get out of there?

A. More than a vicious circle, they are components of the same thing. If poverty is not eliminated, hunger is not eliminated. ECLAC says that we are reaching 200 million people in poverty levels. They are part of the same… I think there are experiences in Latin America that have shown that it is possible to reduce and eliminate hunger. Like Brazil, which left the FAO hunger map in 2014.

It would be a vicious circle if we have the problem and we don’t face it, but I have the feeling that there is an effort to face it.

There is no other scenario than the search for solutions, which are, by the way, very complex: to talk about food insecurity in Central America is to talk about migration factors; of factors of violence. Even drug factors. They are integrated scenarios that were not considered before, and it is important to assume them and not look for isolated solutions. Not even from a country. Mexico alone is not going to get out of the famine scenario. Brazil left and entered.

My feeling is that we are looking for solutions that avoid scenarios that will generate instability. If there is hunger and poverty increases, there will undoubtedly be a scenario of greater instability.

We don’t have long times. Times are not in our favor. We can not wait. We cannot think that we can find the solution in five or six years. There have to be immediate solutions. There must be short and medium-term projects and processes to generate resilience and sustainability.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.