Food-insecure Pinoys up to 46.1M–UN report

“People affected by moderate food insecurity face uncertainties about their ability to obtain food and have been forced to reduce, at times during the year, the quality or quantity of food they consume due to lack of money or other resources,” the report read.

“Severe food insecurity refers to situations when individuals have likely run out of food, experienced hunger and, at the most extreme, gone for days without eating. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity is the combined prevalence of food insecurity at both severity levels.”

Of the 46.1-million food-insecure people in the country, the Fao-unicef report estimated that 4.3 million Filipinos experienced severe food insecurity last year, up from the 3.4 million recorded in 2019.

In Asia-pacific, the report estimated that more than 375 million people in the region faced hunger in 2020, an increase of 54 million over the previous year.

Also, it noted that more than one billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020, an increase of almost 150 million people in just one year.

“The high cost of a healthy diet, and persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality, continue to hold healthy diets out of reach for 1.8 billion people in the Asia and Pacific region,” FAO said.

The major contraction of economic activity in Asia-pacific and the disruption in food supply chains caused by the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the food woes of the region.

Struggling for food

ECONOMISTS from the Asian Development Bank (Adb—manisha Pradhananga, Matteo Lanzafame, and Irfan A. Qureshi--said in their blog that Covid-19 has “unsettled” food supply chains in Asia.

“In the initial days of the pandemic, uncertainty surrounding imminent lockdowns across the region led to panic buying, temporary shortages, and price spikes,” they said.

“Disruptions to domestic and international food supply chains—which emerged as rising health risks —led to major travel restrictions, undermined food availability and accessibility, in particular of perishable goods.”

The ADB economists also noted that the impact on food security has also been sharp within economies. “While the divide is clear across the income strata, new fault lines have emerged as well.”

Urban centers, they said, have been more severely affected because of higher population density, a disproportionately larger share of Covid-19 cases and outbreaks, and stricter restrictions on movement.

“Among the worst affected have been the urban poor, who largely rely on insecure jobs in the informal sector and spend a substantial portion of their income on food.”

The economists said the pandemic has also intensified food insecurity for women and vulnerable groups. The share of women affected by moderate or severe food insecurity was 10 percent higher than that of men in 2020, up from 6 percent in 2019.

“Together with a lower availability of nutritious food and disrupted health and nutrition services, income losses associated with the pandemic are projected to expose an additional 9.3 million children worldwide to wasting by 2022, 2.6 million to stunting, and 168,000 to death, and induce 2.1 million maternal anemia cases,” they said.

Proposals

FOOD assistance and other social transfers will help protect the most vulnerable members of society, according to the economists. They noted that many Asian economies, including the Philippines, are already implementing food assistance programs.

Addressing food security challenges in the medium and long term requires resilient food systems, the economists said. “A proactive response is especially needed in the context of climate change and the expected rise in the frequency and scale of extreme weather events.”

The economists urged governments in Asia to invest in early warning systems—based on advanced spatial information technology combined with detailed crop models, machine learning algorithms, ground data on agricultural production and management—as this can help farmers anticipate extreme weather events and plan accordingly.

They noted that Asia is home to 350 million smallholder farmers, who have access to limited resources, particularly in the face of adverse events. Estimates by FAO suggest that between 2008-2018 agriculture absorbed 63 percent of the damage and loss caused by climate-related disasters across all economic sectors in developing countries.

Alarmingly, between 2003 and 2013, six of the world’s 10 climaterelated disasters most damaging to agriculture were in Asia. They include floods in agrarian economies such as Pakistan, which caused approximately $5.3 billion in agricultural damage and loss in 2010 and $1.9 billion in 2011.