Special Correspondent
Problem is not availability of food, but inadequate access to it
CHENNAI: Latin America is facing an acute food crisis with high rates of chronic under-nutrition, in spite of producing enough food to feed “three times its population,” according to Pedro Medrano, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
“The main problem in Latin America is not the availability of food, but adequate access to it,” said Mr. Medrano, who was speaking at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) here on Saturday. “This problem is a direct result of national development policies and the international community’s inaction.”
The intensifying crisis of under-nutrition in Latin America was a telling sign of the severe problems of poverty, inequality and social unrest that the region was grappling with. Latin America was ranked lowest in the world with regard to its Gini coefficient, which measured the distribution of wealth and income inequality in a country.
According to the WFP’s statistics, 345,648 children in Latin America died every year due to under-nutrition. “Everyday, the equivalent of two jumbo jets of children crashes because of the hunger problem,” Mr. Medrano said.
The problem of under-nutrition was particularly severe in Haiti, which also faced social and political unrest. Around 2.4 million Haitians, sitting on the doorstep of the United States, cannot afford their daily basket of food, Mr. Medrano noted. As in India, the problem of chronic under-nutrition in Latin America was predominant in rural areas. In parts of Guatemala along the Mexico border, under-nutrition rates were as high as 89 per cent.
Mr. Medrano believed there was a need for the development discourse to change its approach to the problem of hunger. Rather than focus solely on food security, Mr. Medrano said governments also needed to facilitate improvements in health, sanitation, education and community empowerment.
There is also a need for public policy to tackle the problem of hunger before taking other steps to eradicate poverty, Mr. Medrano emphasised. “The school of thought was that by reducing poverty and creating employment and income, malnutrition would decrease.”
“There have been cases where poverty was reduced, but malnutrition was still a problem. People have been wasting money on schools and hospitals when most of the children are too undernourished to make use of them. This has been neglected, both in Latin America and in India.”
‘Good example’
M.S. Swaminathan, agricultural scientist and chairman, MSSRF, said the problem of hunger could be solved in Latin America and India if governments demonstrated enough political commitment to do so.
“Tamil Nadu is a good example,” Dr. Swaminathan said.
