Santiago de Chile, Jan 18 (EFE).- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published this Wednesday the report “Regional Panorama of Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America 2022”, a document that warns regarding the lack of access to a healthy diet for more than 131 million people on the continent.
Added to the profound consequences of the covid-19 pandemic throughout Latin America and the Caribbean were the harmful effects of the war in Ukraine and an economic slowdown that, together with the multiple impacts of climate change, led to rising prices. of fertilizers and food.
According to the organization, this is a contradiction in which this part of the planet lives: with a food production potential that would sustain 1,300 million people -double its population-, the region registers high levels of malnutrition, hunger and food insecurity even above global averages, with 40.6% of the population suffering from moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021.
According to the new United Nations report, 22.5% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have sufficient means to access a healthy diet. In the Caribbean, 52% of the population has been affected by this situation; in Mesoamerica this number reaches 27.8% and in South America 18.4%.
The lack of affordability of a healthy diet, ensures the organization, is associated in turn with different socioeconomic and nutritional indicators, establishing a relationship between the income level of a country, the incidence of poverty and the level of inequality.
“No single policy can provide the solution to this problem. It is necessary to strengthen the national and regional coordination mechanisms to respond to hunger and malnutrition”, said the deputy director and regional representative of FAO for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mario Lubetkin.
“To contribute to the affordability of healthy diets, it is necessary to create incentives for the diversification of the production of nutritious foods aimed mainly at family farming and small-scale producers, measures for the transparency of the prices of these foods in the markets and trade, cash transfers and other actions such as improving school menus”, he added.
ROLE OF MARKETS
The FAO, in its publication, assured that both trade policies and markets can play an important role in improving food conditions on the continent, promoting transparency and efficiency to reduce uncertainty, improving the predictability and stability of agri-food trade in the region.
“We are talking regarding the region of the world with the most expensive healthy diet, which particularly affects vulnerable populations —small farmers, rural women, and indigenous and Afro-descendant populations—, who allocate a greater percentage of their income to the purchase of food ”, said the regional director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Rossana Polastri.
“To reverse this situation, we must promote innovative solutions that diversify production and increase the supply of healthy food and that improve small producers’ access to markets and quality food,” he added.
SOCIOECONOMIC OVERVIEW
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported last December that the slowdown in the region will deepen this 2023 and that the growth rate will be only 1.3%, 0.1% less than estimated in last october.
A discouraging panorama that affects boys and girls under 5 years of age and women more strongly, according to FAO data, since they suffer a higher prevalence of food insecurity than men.
On the other hand, hunger levels in the region continue to rise: between 2019 and 2021, this figure increased by 13.2 million, reaching a total of 56.5 million hungry people in 2021.
South America led this trend, where an additional 11 million people suffered from hunger. Between 2019 and 2021, hunger reached a prevalence of 7.9% in South America, 8.4% in Mesoamerica, and 16.4% in the Caribbean.
Other figures presented in the report indicate that the region registers an important evolution with respect to the prevalence of chronic malnutrition in children under 5 years of age.
In 2020, this figure was 11.3% in Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 10 percentage points below the world average. However, 3.9 million children up to 5 years of age are overweight. EFE
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