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| Ensuring food security during covid-19 pandemic | | |
Dr. Parveen Kumar, Dr. D. Namgyal
The COVID-19 case load has crossed the 28,000 mark and the no. of deaths stand at 886. The timely action by the government has by and large prevented itself from going to stage 3 of corona virus. The stage 3 is the community transmission stage and destructive one as we have seen in United States of America, Italy, Spain and China. More than fifty thousand peoples are believed to be dead in U.S.A alone. In India this has been possible due to the timely measures taken by the government. The lockdown along with quarantine, isolation, social distancing and other measures help avoid the country entering into a disastrous phase.
With this lockdown being extended in the country and across the globe in stages, ensuring food security of the poor, landless and the marginalize d in the country has become a challenge for respective governments in different countries. A report of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) also said that food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty may escalate, particularly among marginalized people in the developing world due to the rapid spread of corona virus. The Director General of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has also revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic is not only a major public health concern but also a threat to global food security, one that can be mitigated by avoiding measures that disrupt food supply chains, He also called for ‘preserving access to safe food and nutrition is an essential part of the health response’, and asked countries to strengthen local production and shorten food supply chains. On April 21, the United Nations projected that because of Covid-19, the number of people facing severe food insecurity worldwide could double to 265 million. The same week, in the United States, the five-week total of job losses rose to a staggering 26 million, pushing millions more into food insecurity. At the beginning of 2020, 135 million people around the world were already facing extreme hunger. According to the World Food Program (WFP), that figure could rise to a staggering 265 million people by the end of this year. In remarks delivered to the UN Security Council on April 21, UN World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said, ‘In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries.’
It is not just the emerging economic catastrophe stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic that could well give rise to a global food crisis. What is making the situation worse is that most vulnerable parts of the world are concurrently struggling with other threats to food insecurity: protracted conflicts, recurrent droughts, and the worst locust infestation in decades. The pandemic will impact global food security both directly and indirectly.
A Committee on World Food Security’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition explained that the crisis is already affecting food systems directly through impacts on food supply and demand, and indirectly but just as importantly through decreases in purchasing power, the capacity to produce and distribute food, and the intensification of care tasks, all of which will have differentiated impacts and will more strongly affect the poor and vulnerable. There have been reports where farmers of all sizes across the United States from dairy farmers in Wisconsin to green bean farmers in Florida have been forced to destroy harvests amid a severe drop-off in demand stemming from the closures of restaurants, schools, hotels, and other food service outlets. The amount of food waste is catastrophic. According to reporting on the topic from The New York Times, ‘The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week.
Under such a scenario ensuring food security of all is and going to be a biggest challenge for all. With every type of transport being shut temporarily as a preventive measure to stop the spread of covid-19, trade also has been restricted and also limited the food availability in many countries, particularly those dependent on food import. At this crucial juncture there should not be trade restrictions. As of April 24, 14 countries had food export bans in place for 20 different products.
This could be troublesome. Back in 2007, such trade restrictions were a major contributor to the doubling of world food prices. Analysts have made it very clear that, given ample global food supplies, export bans are the wrong way for governments to cope with economic uncertainty stemming from the pandemic. In the country, this pandemic has come at a time when the harvest of wheat is in full swing and preparations for next crop are going on. The Government of India has exempted all agriculture operations during the lockdown period and ensured continued availability of essential agriculture produce and supply, while adhering to protocol of social distancing, health and hygiene. The horizon of the social safety net programmes should be increased to ensure that none of the deserving is left outside.
Greater thrust should be laid on women and child and older persons. Food grains free of cost to the ultra poor should be distributed. Along with the dry ration, it is also necessary that they should be given other material like oil, salt, onion, pepper etc. A large number of migrants are struck in other states. Presently they are jobless and have no source of income. It is the responsibility of the state governments to ensure adequate food and accommodation for all of them. The farming community should be provided with adequate inputs like seeds, fertilizers and plant protection chemicals at their doorsteps to enable them to prepare for next season crop.
The crisis also opens an opportunity to accelerate food system transformation. The e-commerce tools can be exploited to enhance local resilience and bolster direct links between producers and consumers. New business models are needed. FAO is actively engaged in helping vulnerable countries bolster their food systems to counter shocks caused by COVID-19 along local, regional and global food supply chains. The COVID-19 pandemic makes early warning programmes, rapid emergency and humanitarian aid responses, and robust recovery plans very important. |
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