Abstract
The covid-19 pandemic could lead to extreme poverty that leaves many struggling to afford food, reports Adam Vaughan
THE covid-19 pandemic's impact on hunger around the world could be worse than when food prices spiked calamitously in 2007 and 2008, a leading food security expert has warned.
Unlike during the crisis 13 years ago, when the root of the problem was a scarcity of food, the big issue this time is economic downturns hitting the ability of millions of people to be able to afford food, Martin Cole at the University of Adelaide in Australia told New Scientist.
“I think this has the potential to be more significant than the last time around. Not because of [food] availability, but because the big unknown is the extent and longevity of the global recession. That has the potential to push millions of people into extreme poverty and we know that has a big impact on food security,” said Cole.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) last month cautioned that the coronavirus crisis could double the number of people in acute food insecurity this year, to around 265 million globally.
Maximo Torero at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says the current situation is substantially different to the 2007-08 food security crisis, with a key issue being difficulties moving food around in the face of trade and travel restrictions in many countries.
“The problem is not a problem of food availability, the problem today is of food access,” he says. “We have food available and we have a very good harvest of cereals this year. The problems we are seeing are logistical problems, and especially high-value commodities because they are perishable and any logistic delay will affect them.”
Food stocks are around double the level they were during the 2007-08 crisis, said Cole.
“We think it's a very ironic situation. We see rising hunger in a world of plenty. Global crop markets are well supplied and relatively stable,” said Martien van Nieuwkoop of the World Bank, speaking at a virtual meeting last week held by the FAO.
Another challenge to food systems is decreased demand leading to lower prices, which will mean farmers needing support to cope in many parts of the world, says Torero.
The FAO's index of the most commonly traded food commodities, including cereals and dairy, shows food prices have declined for three months in a row, with April 2020 down 3 per cent on April 2019. “The biggest problem we will be facing will be lower prices,” says Torero.
Another risk is to smallholder farmers in parts of Africa, says Chris Nikoi, the WFP's regional director for West Africa. With many younger people leaving for cities, these farmers tend to be older and so more vulnerable if the coronavirus reaches them and they are infected. “If this aged population begins to be affected by this pandemic, it will have serious implications for food production,” he says.
Analysis by Torero suggests that in an optimistic economic scenario, an extra 14.4 million people will be undernourished in countries that are net importers of food. In a pessimistic scenario, however, that number could be more than 80 million.
“There is a significant new inflow of potential people moving into undernourishment,” said van Nieuwkoop.
Nikoi is also concerned about the impact on child nutrition from schools being shut across Africa. He says that around 65 million children who normally eat “some form of nutritious meal at school are no longer getting it” and work is under way with governments to replace those meals. He cited one mother of five in Gambia who told him that she now had more mouths to feed because schools were closed.
Adding to the pressure on food security this year are swarms of locusts in the Horn of Africa, which the FAO are calling the worst in a quarter of a century.
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