Update Country Report Curaçao 15 Mar 2018

in 2017 Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a simultaneous increase in two contrasting nutritional problems, hunger and obesity, the former normally characteristic of poor countries, and the latter usually associated with rich countries. These, and other issues related to food security and quality, are attracting increased attention in the region.

José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told a regional conference, held in Montego Bay, Jamaica on March 5th-8th, that both hunger (undernourishment) and obesity have increased. Taking into account slower rates of poverty reduction and the increasing impact of climate change, Mr da Silva issued a warning over what he described as a potential "perfect storm" of food insecurity. The conference, attended by all 33 countries in the region, also discussed the impact of last year's earthquake in Mexico and the devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean, and the measures needed to achieve more efficient and sustainable agri-food systems.

Gains in addressing hunger have gone into reverse

Until recently, the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has been making steady year-on-year progress to reduce undernourishment. As many as 20m people have emerged from hunger over the last two decades. But the trend has now slipped into reverse. According to the latest FAO data, between 2015 and 2016 an additional 2.5m people were affected by hunger, taking the total to 42.5m, the largest figure in the last ten years.

Most of the increase is attributed to changes in South America, reflecting the impact of slower economic growth there, along with higher unemployment, and the erosion of social protection programmes caused by fiscal austerity following the end of the commodities boom. As a proportion of the population, hunger in South America rose to 5.6% in 2016, up from 5% a year earlier. By contrast, hunger has not increased in either Central America or the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the absolute level of hunger remains highest in the Caribbean, where it affects 17.7% of the population (the figure is skewed by Haiti, where nearly half the population of 10m is undernourished).

Poor nutrition leads to more obesity

At the same time the LAC region is not escaping what has been described as a global epidemic of obesity. Across a group of 24 countries in the region, one in five adults is now judged to be obese, which is higher than the global average. Around 7% of children under the age of five are also overweight. Overall, there are an estimated 96m obese adults in the region. FAO officials say that to combat this trend it is necessary to encourage people to eat more fresh and locally-grown produce in place of highly processed food.

A potential response to the problems of both hunger and obesity is to promote sustainable food systems where production, trade, transport and consumption are co-ordinated to ensure the delivery of high nutritional values.

Natural disasters and climate change also have an impact

The FAO is calling for a greater focus on the role of family farmers. Such farmers produce 80% of the world's food, but paradoxically they are also particularly vulnerable to hunger, and to the negative effects of climate change. Inside the region, many family farmers have been displaced as they attempt to escape internal conflict, poverty and climate change. In many Caribbean islands, however, they often have no place to go, as the whole area can be affected by hurricanes of increasing intensity.

A separate report recently published by the FAO says that natural disasters in the region caused US$22bn in agricultural and livestock losses in the ten years to 2015, representing just over one-fifth of global losses (estimated at US$96bn). Possible measures to mitigate the impact of extreme weather include development of drought and flood-resistant seeds, better early-warning systems, and better access to credit and insurance.

The conference did note that the region is the world's largest net food exporter and therefore an important player in efforts to reduce world hunger. On the whole, the LAC counties are bio-diverse and fertile, and have plentiful water resources compared with the rest of the world. Despite recent austerity, regional governments have a good track record for pursuing inclusive social policies and helping women to become key members of the rural workforce. Mr da Silva highlighted Brazil's success in poverty reduction, Costa Rica's environmental protection policies and Barbados' success in closing its ports to illegal shipping. Closing the conference, Karl Samuda, Jamaica's minister of industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries, called for a co-operative regional approach to what he called "climate-smart agriculture".

Food security best in Chile, worst in Haiti

The Economist Intelligence Unit studies food security issues around the world, and produces a Global Food Security Index and rankings that comprehensively evaluate a range of drivers affecting affordability, availability, quality and safety of food across 113 countries. In the 2017 version of the index, Chile is the top-ranked LAC country, in 24th position, and the lowest ranked is Haiti (107). Of the 19 LAC countries in the rankings, ten fall in the bottom half. When compared with 2016, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru registered improvement, while the score for Venezuela declined markedly, reflecting that country's economic crisis and accompanying food shortages.