Julie Celestial – June 10, 2020
Food systems are failing and the pandemic is mitigating the situation, said UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, on June 9, 2020.
“Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults.”
Although harvests of crops are holding up and export bans and protectionism have been largely avoided so far, the worst of the pandemic’s impacts and the recession that will follow is yet to be felt.
This year, about 49 million more may fall into extreme poverty due to the coronavirus as the number of people who are severely food insecure will rapidly expand.
“Even in countries with abundant food, we see risks of disruptions in the food supply chain,” Guterres pointed out. “We need to act now to avoid the worst impacts of our efforts to control the pandemic.”
The secretary-general plotted a three-point plan to restore the world’s ailing food systems and avoid further harm.
First, countries must focus aid on the worst-affected regions to ward off immediate disaster and for governments to prioritize food supply chains.
“That means designating food and nutrition services as essential while implementing appropriate protections for food workers. It means preserving critical humanitarian food, livelihood, and nutrition assistance to vulnerable groups.”
“And it means positioning food in food-crisis countries to reinforce and scale up social protection systems,” he added.