The first wave of response to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, thus far, encouraging signs of global cooperation on public health. But there is a global food crisis building on the horizon, and we have precious little time to act in order to prevent devastation.
The World Food Programme has identified 49 countries at high risk of experiencing food crises as a result of COVID-19. For the almost 307 million highly food-insecure people living in these countries, the economic and food security consequences may be worse than the impacts of the disease itself.
On April 5, Minister of International Development Karina Gould announced that Canada has allocated $159.5 million to support its international partners as they work to prevent and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. These investments will help save lives in Canada and around the world. It is imperative that this funding be the first phase of an ongoing response.
The spread of COVID-19 has precipitated critical shocks throughout the global food system.
Farmers — especially the small-scale farmers who are the last line of defense against food insecurity in their communities — are among the worst hit. Trade interruptions are limiting access to seeds and other inputs at a critical moment in many regions, with the planting season about to begin. Social distancing and mobility restrictions also create a high level of vulnerability for farmers in the global South, where agriculture is more labour intensive. In Pakistan, around 70 per cent of small-scale farmers rely on migratory farm labourers who have been unable to travel, according to the Anadolu Agency.
At the same time, lockdowns are creating a surge in staple food prices in many areas — as much as 20 to 33 per cent in Ghana, for example, according to the Cornell Alliance for Science.
Faced with hunger, farming families may be forced to make the impossible choice of eating their grain and pulse seeds to survive today, sacrificing tomorrow’s harvest. Local agricultural organizations have signalled this same risk is on the horizon now.
Many food systems in the global South were already under stress before this crisis, due to climate change, migration and political instability. The impacts of COVID-19 could take these already strained food systems beyond their breaking point.
Women and girls will be the hardest hit. Most rural women in the global South are farmers, focusing primarily on small-scale production for their households and communities. In many places, women are also the traditional seed-keepers, maintaining seed supplies to assure harvests for future years. Yet, they are systematically denied land rights, excluded from household and community decision-making and denied access to resources and capital.
This marginalization is exacerbated in times of crisis. Women and girls in food-insecure households eat last and least, according to the World Food Programme. At the same time, increased pressure on local food and seed production places additional demands on women’s labour. It is incumbent upon us to take action to prevent the mass suffering of food-insecure women and girls, and to support their critical work as farmers.
Fighting a food crisis is a lot like combatting a pandemic — an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
We know the vulnerabilities, and the prescriptions needed to mitigate harm. Farmers who have lost access to external inputs and affordable food need support to boost local seed, crop, livestock and input production, and expand community and home gardens. If we do this in ways that make use of locally available resources, and support sustainable farming practices, we will also bolster resilience to future crises, including climate change.
As we have witnessed in Canada, demands on food systems during this time are immense. We need to come together now to prevent the COVID-19 health crisis from starting a global food crisis.
Canada has demonstrated impressive international leadership on gender equality through our Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP). This gendered approach must continue in our food security response. By taking action now, we can save the lives of people who may survive the virus, but die from lack of food.
Canada has a critical role to play in leading this global response.
Comments
ndustry is as great as the oil industry.
In fact, a landmark article by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, published by the Worldwatch Institute journal in October 2009, brings a great deal of data to bear on its argument that at least half of human-caused greenhouse gasses can be attributed to meat production. The article, along with supporting evidence, plus other related articles, can be found on the “Chomping Climate Change” website.
http://www.chompingclimatechange.org/publications/articles/
But what about the animals, themselves, slaughtered in their multiple millions in Canada and elsewhere (also killed for “sport” and fur)? Is not this current tragic period a good time to rethink the moral and environmental impact of all this killing? Indeed, can we overcome the carnivorous culture in which most of us were brought up?
In 1906, Upton Sinclair exposed the
ndustry is as great as the oil industry.
In fact, a landmark article by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, published by the Worldwatch Institute journal in October 2009, brings a great deal of data to bear on its argument that at least half of human-caused greenhouse gasses can be attributed to meat production. The article, along with supporting evidence, plus other related articles, can be found on the “Chomping Climate Change” website.
http://www.chompingclimatechange.org/publications/articles/
But what about the animals, themselves, slaughtered in their multiple millions in Canada and elsewhere (also killed for “sport” and fur)? Is not this current tragic period a good time to rethink the moral and environmental impact of all this killing? Indeed, can we overcome the carnivorous culture in which most of us were brought up?
In 1906, Upton Sinclair exposed the
terror inflicted on the animals in the Chicago slaughter industry in his super-realistic novel “The Jungle.” Today, we undoubtedly kill many more sentient beings to meet an ever-growing, insatiable world-wide demand.
In the sense that we — also animals in the web of life — are composed of the same basic materials that constitute “life,” any one of us could in a certain sense have been the animals we eat. People don’t think about this when they spend a few dollars to buy what seems like an endless supply of “meat” — fellow creatures, recently born into the world, not knowing the cruel fate that awaits them.
In her moving song “Woodstock,” Joni Mitchell describes us as “Stardust,” in effect children of the universe, as are all living beings on Earth. And in relation to this, very few of us are really conscious in our everyday lives that the basic foods on which we and all other animals depend are gifts of the universe through photosynthesis. What we are in effect offered by the universe is a plant-based, vegan, means of existence.
Recently, 180 elected government leaders, as well as business and union leaders, NGOs, and activists from eleven European countries signed a letter supporting green, low carbon, post-Coronavirus economies. Moving towards plant-based nutrition in place of meat is crucial if we are to heal the Earth and move away from the destruction predicted by climate change.
Finally, I am with the philosopher Plutarch when he says: “But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”
terror inflicted on the animals in the Chicago slaughter industry in his super-realistic novel “The Jungle.” Today, we undoubtedly kill many more sentient beings to meet an ever-growing, insatiable world-wide demand.
In the sense that we — also animals in the web of life — are composed of the same basic materials that constitute “life,” any one of us could in a certain sense have been the animals we eat. People don’t think about this when they spend a few dollars to buy what seems like an endless supply of “meat” — fellow creatures, recently born into the world, not knowing the cruel fate that awaits them.
In her moving song “Woodstock,” Joni Mitchell describes us as “Stardust,” in effect children of the universe, as are all living beings on Earth. And in relation to this, very few of us are really conscious in our everyday lives that the basic foods on which we and all other animals depend are gifts of the universe through photosynthesis. What we are in effect offered by the universe is a plant-based, vegan, means of existence.
Recently, 180 elected government leaders, as well as business and union leaders, NGOs, and activists from eleven European countries signed a letter supporting green, low carbon, post-Coronavirus economies. Moving towards plant-based nutrition in place of meat is crucial if we are to heal the Earth and move away from the destruction predicted by climate change.
Finally, I am with the philosopher Plutarch when he says: “But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”
Shloime Perel