Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population

ARGENTINA: Six Million Go Hungry in Land of Abundance

Marcela Valente*

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 26 2003 (IPS) - Despite the abundance of food in Argentina, one of the world’s leading producers of beef, corn, wheat and soybeans, more than six million people are unable to meet their minimum daily dietary requirements.

”The hunger is terrible,” Noemí Ayala, who lives in a slum neighbourhood in the outlying Buenos Aires district of Pacheco, told IPS. ”Your stomach hurts, and the kids just cry and cry until they finally fall asleep, exhausted. That’s the worst part.”

Ayala and several of her neighbours cook in one of the myriad community soup kitchens that have cropped up in Argentina in the past few years of economic crisis.

”In Argentina, the problem is not one of availability of food, but of being able to afford it. If the distribution of wealth were more equitable, there would be enough food for everyone,” anthropologist Patricia Aguirre, an expert on food security at the Health Ministry’s Maternal-Infant Health division, told IPS.

She pointed out that without even counting what is exported, the food produced in this Southern Cone country of 37 million would provide a daily diet of 3,181 calories to everyone, far higher than the minimum 2,200 calories recommended by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

But that wealth in food is not reflected on everyone’s table. According to a study carried out by Aguirre, there was a single food consumption pattern in Argentina in the 1960s, but with the recession of the 1990s and the subsequent economic crisis, two distinct patterns have emerged, as the gap between rich and poor has widened.

The middle and upper classes now have access to at least 250 different food products, while the diet of the poor includes only 22 affordable items, says the report.

”In 1965, diets in Argentina were much better than today, and everyone ate more or less the same. What varied was the quality,” said Aguirre.

But by 1985, two well-differentiated patterns had emerged. Today, the poor consume more bread, pasta and potatoes, and less meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products.

Inequality in terms of access to a healthy, varied diet is a new phenomenon in this country rich in natural resources, with fertile plains ideal for pastureland – on which top-quality beef is produced – and for growing a wide variety of crops, and an abundance of freshwater fish and seafood.

More than half of the population – 54.7 percent – of this once-rich nation has fallen into poverty, and 6.2 million people are extremely poor, unable to cover the cost of a basic diet, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC).

The situation has become so serious that FAO will open a permanent office in the country in September.

”The extent of poverty in Argentina is disturbing, because the collapse occurred in such a short period of time,” said FAO regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Gustavo Gordillo.

The FAO official said the Argentine economic debacle demonstrated the truth of the warning that FAO has reiterated for years: food security is not only a question of food production, but one of access, which is only guaranteed for those who can afford a decent diet.

The stipend of 150 pesos a month (around 50 dollars) that the central government now pays out to two million unemployed heads of households covers just half the cost of the basket of basic food items for a family of four.

”It is impossible for a family with five children to serve two meals a day on 150 pesos a month,” Silvia Báez, director of the Nutrir (To Nourish) Programme, which forms part of the non-governmental Solidarity Network, told IPS. ”They have no choice but to get one of their meals at a community soup kitchen or in school.”

The Nutrir Programme, which emerged four years ago, has assessed the nutritional status of 3,200 children using tables that evaluate the youngsters based on weight and height for age.

The Programme’s team of nutritionists visits poor neighbourhoods in the greater Buenos Aires area, weighing the children who visit soup kitchens. Through contacts with community leaders, they then organise workshops on nutrition for the mothers of malnourished children.

”When the crisis took a turn for the worse in 2002, we believed the poor families we were seeing couldn’t be worse off than they already were. However, it turned out that there was still room for things to get worse,” said Báez, whose programme is currently assisting 250 undernourished children.

The diet of the poor basically consists of carbohydrates, said Báez. But in a critical situation like the one facing millions of families today, any diet, even if it is not varied, is preferable, as long as it helps people put meat on their bones, she pointed out.

According to the Centre of Studies on Child Nutrition – which has consultancy status with the World Health Organisation – 20 percent of children under five in Argentina are malnourished.

”The malnutrition we see in Argentina is a result of wasting, which means a deficit of calories. The most serious cases of undernourishment, caused by a lack of protein, are few and far between. That enables us to achieve good results, because once they return to an adequate diet, the children recover quickly,” she said.

The cases of children suffering malnourishment as a result of insufficient protein, a phenomenon known as ”kwashiorkor”, which causes stunted growth, muscle loss, and compromised immune systems, are rare in Argentina.

A handful of cases that came to light last year in the northwestern province of Tucuman caused a commotion in Argentine society.

But ”We’re talking about children who were born with severe health problems or disabilities like cerebral palsy, whose parents found it difficult to feed them solid foods,” said Báez.

But when diets are limited to flour, sugar and fatty meats, and include very little fruit, vegetables and lean meats, the consequence is what Aguirre described as ”silent” or hidden hunger.

The poorest of the poor consume food that is fattening, but suffer a deficit of iron, calcium and other micronutrients that are found in products that they simply cannot afford.

”Obesity is the face that hunger has taken on in the 21st century,” said Aguirre, underscoring that being overweight is never a sign of health.

Obtaining a varied diet has become more and more difficult as the unemployment and poverty rates have climbed in this country, whose population is 90 percent urban, said Aguirre, noting that there are very few poor who can grow their own food.

The difficulties are aggravated when women are left without work, because a greater proportion of their income – 43 percent compared to 22.2 percent of men’s income – goes towards putting food on the table. According to INDEC, 15 percent of male heads of households and 12 percent of female heads of households are unemployed.

For that reason, the Nutrir Programme focuses on women, in its aim to reach children under five.

The poor – especially women – develop survival strategies ”to ease the effects of the crisis, but they are unable to get around it completely,” said Aguirre. One of the most typical strategies is for the mother to give up her share when there is not enough food to go around.

”You eat what there is,” says Ayala. The food donations that she and her neighbours scrounge up go into the community pot at the La Lechería soup kitchen. But at night, ”there is nothing” to eat, and when there is a little something, ”it’s for the kids.”

”A cup of tea, and to bed,” said Ayala, who bakes bread at home when she has flour, or cooks polenta (corn meal porridge), pasta or soup with beef bones.

Aguirre explained that ”It is not that women have lost the skills handed down by their grandmothers, who used a greater variety of food in their cooking. The problem is that they cannot afford fruit, vegetables, or meat, so they restrict their diets to whatever is cheap.”

Some poor families also buy meat sold at street market stalls, that has not passed the necessary health controls.

A few find space on which to grow vegetables, but some face risks of eating contaminated food due to the poor quality of the soil where they plant their little gardens.

In Aguirre’s view, such initiatives should be supported and strengthened. It is more important to back up the efforts of female heads of households who somehow buy or obtain food than to distribute food or open community soup kitchens, she argued.

* This report is part of a special IPS series on hunger in Latin America. ¡