Covid-19 ‘stems from food’
SHEREE BEGA
THE novel coronavirus is believed to have been transmitted into the human population through the use of animals as food and “possibly even through the course of a meal”, says Tatjana von Bormann, the head of WWF-SA’S policy and future unit.
“This is not the first time that food, our sustenance, has delivered a potentially lethal pathogen. It’s just the most recent and most catastrophic health event of our time,” she writes in a new report for World Hunger Day, Challenging False Narratives in a Global Crisis: Reflections on Human Rights, Inequality and Securing Food Systems.
“Given the intensifying of the enabling conditions for zoonotic disease, Covid-19 may be considered a timeous warning and a generational opportunity to act now and reduce the probability and severity of the emergence of even deadlier diseases, which have the potential to become pandemics, affecting humanity across the globe,” argues Von Bormann, the chairperson of the advisory board of the Southern Africa Food Lab, which produced the report together with Community Chest.
Earlier this year, the WWF identified the nexus between emerging zoonotic diseases and conservation – finding how changing land use, primarily for agriculture, was the direct driver of disease. Other factors included climate change, trade and wildlife hunting.
“The increase in spillover risks were directly connected to land use change, which results in the loss and degradation of nature; the intensification and expansion of agriculture and animal production to meet an increasing demand for animal protein worldwide and the sale and consumption of high-risk animals.”
A “systemic response” is needed, which includes a holistic conservation agenda to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. “In this, it’s really important that we don’t make the vulnerable more vulnerable by denying access to good nutrition and rights to natural resources.”
This includes decreasing deforestation, regulating animal husbandry and eating less meat
“as it is unchecked demand that is linked both to health risks and environmental change but this lever will look different in each geography”.
While the illegal wildlife trade has always been an area of concern for biodiversity, “we need to pay greater attention to the food system and how it impacts on biodiversity – to how we obtain our food is encroaching on habitats and intact biodiversity areas.
“We need to look at current approaches to the production and sale of meat and meat consumption, which is driving the rise of pandemic diseases, climate change and biodiversity loss.”
Rural communities in
Africa have long been the best custodians of biodiversity and “there is a critical need to establish mechanisms to determine their own future”.
Julie Smith, of the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, writes in the report how the Covid-19 pandemic has not caused the crisis on the plates of South African households.
“It has, however, shone a light on it and lockdown has exacerbated it. With children and workers at home, food now runs out quicker. Women are finding it even harder to feed their families. Periods of nutritional deprivation and hunger are now extended for longer.”