China Daily Global Edition (USA)
More funds, but hopes stretched in food crisis
Declaration of emergency highlights scale of hunger in battered Argentina
One meal a day is the harsh reality of life for people in some towns of Argentina, even though the country is both a major grain producer and exporter of farm produce.
Those going hungry may cling to hope that the nation’s food supply will improve as a result of the declaration of a food emergency on Sept 18 in a country battered by a growing economic and financial crisis.
Accompanying the declaration was legislation approved by the parliament that extends a food emergency plan first developed in response to a crisis early this century. It would make about 50 percent more money available to fight hunger through public food and nutrition programs.
The Argentine peso has lost 44 percent of its value against the US dollar in the past 12 months, highlighting the magnitude of the country’s economic crisis.
“In smaller towns it’s gotten very hard to buy groceries. There’s just the bare necessities. Meat is substituted with eggs, and dairy, fruits and vegetables are reduced to minimum amounts,” said Luis Fernando Suarez, an agricultural engineer who teaches farmers how to develop better orchards.
“They are getting by on one meal a day. There’s little for dinner — tea and bread at the most.
Legislator Alfredo Hector Luenzo told local media: “This law has increased the budget for all food and nutrition programs and will increase funding where people need it most. Half of our kids are under food distress. This means they have a worrying nutritional deficit.”
Almost two-thirds of Argentina’s national expenses included in this year’s budget go to social programs, retirement benefits and health. Food programs are not listed separately in the $36 billion budget. Estimates suggest it will cost about $552 million a year to fulfill the ambitions of the new law and feed children in need. Funds to pay for it will be reassigned from other areas.
It is unclear how much it costs to feed all the hungry children because both provinces and municipalities also run food programs that may get a boost from the new national funding.
The number of malnourished people in Argentina has increased by more than a fourth between 2015 and 2018, from 1.5 million people to 2.1 million, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency.
Increase in poverty
Government figures indicate that the proportion of people living in poverty rose to 32 percent of the population in the second half of 2018, from 25.7 percent in the same period a year earlier. Unemployment hit 10.6 percent in the second quarter of 2019, a 1.5 percent increase year-on-year.
When trying to quantify hunger, there are no figures, said Alberto Valdez, a political analyst and journalist based in Buenos Aires. “However, there are no doubts that due to the devaluation (of the peso), the high inflation and a significant increase in poverty, life has gotten harder.”
Argentina produces enough food to feed about 10 times its population of about 45 million and is an agricultural powerhouse, but most of that goes to export markets.
At the same time, there are quite a number of areas far from the food production zones — in the desertlike north of the country or the arid far south — that do not receive enough supplies to meet daily needs.
Making life even more difficult for Argentina’s poor, the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, expects inflation will reach 43.7 percent this year, meaning food prices will on average be almost twice as expensive a year from now.
Suarez works for INTA, a government department that promotes better agricultural practices, together with other social and political organizations. He works with about 500 families in dire need of assistance in northwestern Cordoba, a province in central Argentina, offering classes, workshops and other events in the poorest parts of that district.
He said many families were living off occasional work and that dried up. Temporary jobs at construction sites or farms are no longer available as small investment has been interrupted amid a growing economic crisis that has increased the possibility that Argentina will default on its debt for the third time this century.
Suarez estimates that at least 90 percent of the needy he works with receive some cash from the government.
In remote rural areas, the real problem Suarez sees is the lack of formal jobs. His concern is that “there’s no industry” in these areas.
Long-term development may be challenging for an economy expected to shrink by 1.2 percent in 2019, according to the IMF. With myriad programs already in place, albeit with varying degrees of success, an increase in funding is not expected to produce miracle results if the economy stays in the doldrums. The author is a freelance journalist based in Buenos Aires.