A recent report, titled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, has stated that an estimated 820 million people worldwide did not have enough to eat in 2018, up from 811 million in the previous year. The annual report is based on a global assessment by leading UN agencies on food security and nutrition in relation to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
Included once again in the report are worrying statistics which should force governments and international development partners to do more to end hunger and malnutrition, and to ensure that countries take urgent steps towards being food secure.
According to the report, the pace of progress in halving the number of children who are stunted and in reducing the number of babies born with low birth weight is too slow, which also puts the SDG 2 nutrition targets further out of reach.
The report has found that hunger is increasing in many countries where economic growth is lagging. It also found that income inequality is rising in many of the countries where hunger is on the rise, making it even more difficult for the poor, vulnerable or marginalised to cope with economic slowdowns and downturns.
According to the report, the situation is most alarming in Africa, as that region has the highest rates of hunger in the world, and those rates are continuing, slowly but steadily, to rise in almost all sub-regions. In eastern Africa in particular, close to a third of the population (30.8 percent) is undernourished. In addition to climate and conflict, economic slowdowns and downturns are driving the rise.
The report mentions that the largest number of undernourished people (more than 500 million) live in Asia, mostly in southern Asian countries. Together, Africa and Asia bear the greatest share of all forms of malnutrition, accounting for more than nine out of ten of all stunted children, and over nine out of ten of all wasted children worldwide.
Here, in this region, while agriculture and agriculture-related issues have dominated discussions at almost every level, many are of the view that regional heads have not taken the kind of action to ensure countries are food secure. It could be recalled that, in 2002, former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who had lead responsibility at the time for Agriculture in the Caricom quasi cabinet, had sought assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture to boost the region’s efforts in ensuring it is food secure.
One year after, Jagdeo proposed that the region build on its past efforts to develop a common agricultural policy, and requested that the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) support the Caricom Secretariat in developing a framework for repositioning agriculture in the region.
In underlining the problems the agricultural sector faces in the region, Jagdeo had stressed that, in the changing global environment, the sector was neither providing for food security nor earning the foreign exchange needed to cover the region’s growing food import bill.
In addition, at a Caricom Heads of Government Conference in Grand Anse, Grenada, Mr Jagdeo had presented a paper, titled “A Framework for the Repositioning of Caribbean Agriculture”. In that framework, he had stressed the need for a regional policy and strategy aimed at strengthening food security and alleviating poverty; and in January 2005, then President Jagdeo’s proposal was formally dubbed the “Jagdeo Initiative”, with the theme, “Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Development”.
The declining role of agriculture in the region, the continuing loss of preferential markets for the region’s traditional products, and the rapidly increasing extra-regional food import bill are among the serious and challenging issues highlighted in the “Jagdeo Initiative”. However, while there has been much banter on the topic, many are of the view that not enough was done to strengthen the region’s agriculture sector and bring it to a level envisaged in the “Jagdeo Initiative”.
There is need for countries in the region to better organise themselves and their individual farming sectors, and encourage young persons to embrace new technologies to see farming and agriculture as a business.
While Guyana is on the cusp of becoming an oil-producing nation, and much attention is being placed on this new economy, it is hoped that the authorities here will not place other traditional sectors, among which are agriculture, mining and manufacturing, on the back burner. Guyana must continue to make the necessary interventions to ensure the country produces enough to meet the demands of its citizens, and to even take advantage of the export market.
