From Rome
“Four out of ten inhabitants of Latin America live with food insecurity”, that is, they cannot feed themselves enough, said in an interview with Page 12 the new Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean of the FAO, the United Nations Food Organization and Agriculture. The Uruguayan Mario Lubetkin was appointed at the beginning of August and is already in Santiago de Chile, base of that section of the FAO.
“Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the largest net food exporters on the planet and, as some governments say, it produces enough food and calories to support many more people than the population of the region (today some 649 million inhabitants). But from a negative point of view, it should be noted that there are currently 56.5 million Latin American and Caribbean people who are hungry and 268 million people with moderate or severe food insecurity. And we also have to add a hundred million adults who are obese, that is, poorly nourished. The most affected country is Haiti, which has 47 percent of the population, 5.4 million inhabitants, in a situation of hunger”, he stressed. For the FAO, food insecurity is defined as the lack of regular access to food, due to the unavailability of that food and/or the lack of resources to obtain it.
A long-time journalist, Lubetkin was director of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency in Rome from 2002 to 2014. He then worked at the FAO, whose international base is in Rome, as Director of the Office of Institutional Communication, Director of the Cabinet and then Deputy Director General.
On August 15 and 16, Lubetkin will be in Buenos Aires for a series of meetings with representatives of the national government and the Ministry of Economy. In addition to signing some agreements in the Casa Rosada with provinces, among them Chaco, he will discuss with the Argentine authorities -as Argentina is the current president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States- about the possible forms of support for the countries of the region in terms of agriculture, family farming, food crisis, productivity, etc.
“Today the trend is an increase in hunger, not a decrease as it had been outlined five years ago. The trend was reversed partly due to covid and partly due to the effects of the war in Ukraine, but also due to the economic difficulties of the countries, inflation. From 2019 to today there are 19 million more people in a situation of hunger than before,” Lubetkin said.
The effects of the war in Ukraine
“What we have been saying is that we should not focus on the war in Ukraine because there are other scenarios that have been much more serious from the point of view of the starving millions,” Lubetkin stressed. This is the case of Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, Afghanistan. What happened in Ukraine surely aggravated the situation in the world. But we cannot say that there has been a dramatic change since February 24 on the issue of hunger. Hunger has been aggravated by errors in social policy, it is a poorly managed historical phenomenon. When several governments corrected their social policies a few years ago, the scenario improved. It deteriorated again in 2015 2016 and until now there has been no reversal of that situation. On February 24, the subject of hunger did not change. On this point I want to be very clear, ”he clarified.
Asked about the influence that the Ukraine war has had on Latin America in particular, Lubetkin pointed out that the effects have been seen in the increase in the price of food products and fertilizers. “According to our data, 11% of current inflation in Latin America is based on the increase in food products,” he said.
For some it could be something incomprehensible since the region is a food producer. However, many countries in the region import fertilizers, especially from Russia, the world’s leading producer, and from Ukraine. Among them Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador that import between 15 and 20% from Russia. They also import Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras, among others. Russia and Ukraine control 30/40% of the world fertilizer market. “Some countries still have fertilizers but this year they will start to be scarce. And that will influence next year’s crops. There are countries that have the possibility of producing different fertilizers, as is the case of Argentina. But the point to be clarified is if investments are made in that direction, what are the transportation levels and the inflationary levels to be able to embark on that path, Lubetkin explained.
What can FAO do?
“We all agree that the situation is very bad. Nobody disputes that. The discussion begins on the possible solutions”, added the FAO leader, indicating that the perspectives are “negative” with the increase in prices and the shortage of fertilizers.
“FAO wants to facilitate the processes of reflection and solution, partial or total, based on the reflections that governments are doing. We want to promote a dialogue interaction between the countries. And there is also our capacity, our global and technical knowledge that we can offer, so as to be able to help clarify what the ways out are today. In all these years of pandemic, dialogue was also difficult. Countries were taking action on their own,” he recounted.
But then, what are the most urgent issues according to the FAO? “There is a set of things that need to be addressed: keep the food and fertilizer trade open, supply new and diverse foods so that the countries that depend on this food import do not have disruptions, instability and can maintain the resilience of the agri-food system. Social protection measures must also improve their results, because high food prices are more negative for those living in poverty. Another important issue is innovation. Digitization is a fundamental factor for rural development. That is key and many governments are doing it, Argentina is one of them”, concluded the FAO Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean.