TheFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO) andWorld Food Program (WFP) report 17.7.20 indicates the emergence of the acute food crisis in at least 27 countries. (1) The news escapes the generalist press as well as the political attention of the West, ça va sans dir. And yet it is crucial both for understanding the reasons for the current migration flows and for stimulating the necessary solidarity interventions.
Alarm signals
‘Early warning analysis of acute food insecurity hotspots’ is the title of the 17.7.20 report by FAO and WFP. 3.5 billion people, as it turns out, are in absolute poverty. And the food crisis is acute today in at least 27 countries. Where famines and climate emergency, conflicts and embargoes have been compounded by the Covid-19 effect.
‘As jobs are lost, the flow of remittances slows and food systems are stressed or disrupted, the number of people facing acute food insecurity-the most extreme form of hunger-will increase. At the same time, if COVID-19 persists, unless acute hunger is rapidly addressed and prevented, the world could see a further increase in chronic hunger, with long-term consequences for hundreds of millions of children and adults’.
Pandemic and recession
The Covid-19 pandemic is tragically exacerbating the systemic food crisis, as FAO and its Committee on Food Security (CFS) already predicted on 10.4.20. The determining factors are essentially two:
– obstacles in the agribusiness supply chain caused by containment measures that have disrupted or otherwise restricted the movement of farm laborers and logistics,
– Economic recession. The most severe since World War II, according to the World Bank.
Unemployment and food prices
The International Labor Office (ILO) estimates that the recession has already burned more than 400 million regular full-time jobs. Added to this is the imponderable impact of the recession on the informal economy, which was estimated to employ about 2 billion people before the crisis. Equal to 62 percent of the total global labor force (ILO, 2020). Money remittances from migrants to their countries of origin have themselves dropped by an average of 20 percent-with peaks at 50 percent in Somalia, where they account for 40 percent of household income-from the declaration of the pandemic (11.3.20) to the present(World Bank, 2020).
International food prices had first declined, slowing down the economies of countries where it relies on agricultural production.
‘The collapse in state revenues means that essential safety nets, such as social protection and school feeding programs, are underfunded and unable to meet growing needs.’
However, food prices have started to rise again in the past two months, peaking in areas with severe social disparities. Such as in parts of Yemen (up 35 percent from April to date) and Afghanistan (up 20 percent), to name a couple of examples. And the extreme poverty index is going up, to double in countries such as Bangladesh where it has exceeded 40 percent(South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, SANEM, 2020).
27 countries at high risk of hunger
Twenty-seven countries are now at high risk of acute food insecurity, on three out of five continents:
– Central America. In Venezuela, the U.S. embargo had forced 9.3 million people at serious risk of food insecurity even before Covid (WFP, July-September 2019). Added to this are 5.2 million migrants in neighboring countries (WFP, June 2020). And the ongoing economic crises in Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua,
– East Africa. In grasshopper-invadedEthiopia, 16.5 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance. In South Sudan, the hungry are over 6.5 million (May-July 2020). In Somalia, 3.5 million are expected between now and September,
– Sub-Saharan and West Africa. 12.3 million people at risk of hunger were estimated in 16 countries even before the new coronavirus(Global Report on Food Crises, GRFC, October-December 2019). In Nigeria, the first economy as well as the continent’s most populous country (population 200 million), the collapse in oil prices and recession are severely impacting food purchasing capacity, adding to the precariousness of 2.5 million internally displaced persons in the Northeast. So in Sierra Leone (4 million hungry), Liberia, Burkina Faso, Niger (+1270% hungry in 2019, GRFC), Mali (+300% afflicted by food insecurity in 2019),
– Central Africa. 5 million displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s second-largest country in terms of acute food security crisis. 2.36 million people in acute food crisis in Central African Republic, 950,000 hungry in
Cameroon
(doubled in one year. WFP 2020),
– Southern Africa. Food inflation at 953% in May in Zimbabwe. Black hunger in Mozambique as well, amid cyclones and drought.
– North Africa and the Middle East. In Yemen, which depends on food imports, 15.9 million people (53 percent of the population) were already suffering from acute food insecurity in 2018. And the latest report in May 2020 signals the worsening of the situation. In Syria, the pincer of the U.S. embargo has starved 9.3 million people, and another 2 million will be added due to the macroeconomic crisis. In Sudan acute food insecurity will reach 9.6 million cases, between June and September 2020. In Iraq, acute hunger afflicted 1.8 million individuals prior to the crisis (2019, GRFC) that dealt a severe blow to the national economy (GDP -10% projected due to oil). In Libya, between war and falling oil prices, hunger affects at least 10 percent of the population and a third of the 650,000 migrants. Lebanon and to a lesser extent Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt ‘will be particularly affected‘ by the global recession. Critical situation in Palestine as well.
Iran, another victim of the U.S. embargo, estimates 25 million infected with Covid-19 (2.3). But it curiously escapes the report under review by FAO and WFP (!).
– Asia. Bangladesh is facing a momentous crisis that has doubled the poverty rate in just a few months. Contagion containment measures put rice production and market access at risk of discontinuity. And remittances from abroad, the second largest source of family income, have decreased (-20 percent). In Afghanistan, the situation is critical in urban areas because of the recession. And the mouths to feed have increased because of the returns of those who worked in Pakistan and Iran but lost their jobs.
In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the victim of the longest-lasting U.S. embargo, food security risk was attributed to 10.1 million humans in 2019 (FAO-WFP, 2019). Then between March and April 2020, trade with China collapsed (-90%).
The first victims of injustice
‘Women, the elderly, the young, children, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, minorities, and displaced populations, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and low-wage migrants (international and domestic), are likely to face even greater challenges as existing formal and informal safety nets and social structures are adversely affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
The urban poor living in densely populated areas and households dependent on the informal sector (both rural and urban) will be among the hardest hit. For children from families who are already poor and food insecure, the negative effects of the crisis, including extensive school closures and lack of school meals, could have lifelong effects and further perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty and inequality’.
Interim conclusions
The document under review is just a little exercise in desk reporting, with crude estimates based on a ‘poverty line’ defined as US$1.90/day by World Bank bureaucrats who earn on average 100 times as much. And it is grotesque that countries such as India-second largest in the world by population (1.380 billion. Worldometer, 1.7.20)-where there were 1.8 million homeless even before the coronavirus and containment measures continue in the country’s most productive areas (4.5).
The only food area interests of the colonialists of all time, after all, reside in GMO corn and soybeans for livestock, palm oil for food-waste and biodiesel, and cocoa and hazelnuts from child labor for maximum profit desserts.
Covid-19 could have taught even the most selfish peoples and governments in the Global North something. You cannot save yourself, discomfort is as transmissible as viruses, the vulnerability of some poses a risk to all. But no, the compulsion to repeat colonial patterns is renewed every day. Never minding social injustice, never understanding that redistribution of value is the only way to survive. For more details see the freeebook Covid-19, the ABCs. Volume III – Planet.
Dario Dongo and Sabrina Bergamini
On the cover a review of CARIÑO’s illustration, Cartoon Movement.
Notes
(1) FAO-WFP early warning analysis of acute food insecurity hotspots. July 2020
(2) The New York Times editorial board.
This Coronavirus Crisis Is the Time to Ease Sanctions on Iran.
. NYT. 25.3.20
(3)
Rouhani says 25 million Iranians may have been infected with coronavirus
. Reuters. 18.7.20
(4) Arulmani Thiyagarajan, Sudip Bhattacharya, Kanica Kaushal (2018). Homelessness: An Emerging Threat. International Journal of Healthcare Education and Medical Information.
ISSN: 2455-9199
(5)
Modi says coronavirus risk persists in India, recoveries rise
. Reuters. 26.7.20
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Journalist. Consumption, rights, nutrition, social, environment. Head of Consumers Help. She collaborated with ResetDOC, Il Riformista, La Nuova Ecologia, IMGPress.
