Arranging sliced tomatoes to dry in the sun in Bangar el Sokor, Nubaria, Egypt. Rahma is a. Credit: Heba Khammis/FAO

By Juan Carlos García y Cebolla
MADRID, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Most cultures have created taboos and norms that prevent food waste. At the same time, social mores have reserved for occasions of celebrations or hospitality a code associating the abundance of food, in quantities much higher than normal, with concepts such as generosity and honour. 

In the last century, along with technical and productive advances and social transformations, taboos have gradually disappeared or lost their effectiveness, and the notion of celebration has led to increasingly common and unconscious manifestations of opulence and neglect.

On the other hand, the food chain has been transformed, multiplying the number of operations and actors, and becoming much more complex. In many cases, the resulting search for ever lower costs has led to a reduced workforce and the assuming of a higher percentage of loss and waste, as occurs with fruit that is damaged by careless handling in self-service retail.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade

In the last decade, there has been growing concern about the scale this unsustainable behaviour has reached.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade. In turn, this has an important impact on the right to adequate food of broad sectors of the population.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted our dynamics. In addition to the damage it has caused to daily life, it has exposed these systemic problems and the need for urgent changes in the way we manage the planet and its fruits, including food loss and waste.

Although disruptions to the food supply chain are – for now – relatively minor overall, measures imposed by States to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus have generated obstacles typical of distant times: from cultivation and harvesting, through transport and storage, up to consumption.

Mobility restrictions (closure of roads and borders, and delays due to mandatory controls) prevent or delay the transport and distribution of goods, resulting in agricultural products that spoil or are not sold due to their low quality. Changes in demand reduce the income of producers, especially small farmers or those living in remote rural areas.

On the consumer side, families with lower purchasing power find it even more costly to access fresh and more perishable foods, such as fruits or fish (leading to unhealthier diets and long-term health costs).

During the pandemic, access to food is not only a problem for the poorest, but also in many cases for people with greater resources who have traditionally been able to afford fresh products of high nutritional value and healthy diets. Among them, the at-risk population, or elderly or chronically ill people, who have to stay at home.

The pandemic has taught us that in times of crisis, it is not only essential to ensure the flow of non-perishable food, but also the linkages between consumers and producers. This facilitates access to fresh foods and healthy diets for all, as well as maintaining demand and sustaining local production, and in turn combating food loss and waste.

To date, we have witnessed the rapid implementation of initiatives to address these challenges.

In Spain, the municipality of Valladolid helped to set up safe home delivery of ‘zero kilometre’ or local foods that have not travelled far after production. The Government of Oman has transformed the fish auction markets from a physical marketplace to a digital platform, where market workers upload photos of the catch and wholesalers, retailers and restaurants can view the daily offer and place their orders online.

Even before the pandemic, the South African “Second Harvest” program, led by a non-profit organization, allowed commercial farmers to donate to vulnerable people the post-harvest surplus produced directly from the farms and distributed with refrigerated vehicles, preserving their quality and nutritional value.

The 2021 Food Systems Summit, convened by the United Nations Secretary General, will be a great opportunity to rethink how to improve access to healthy diets and income for small producers, as well as reducing loss and waste.

In the face of future crises, responses cannot be improvised. We have to be prepared and incorporate a vision of prevention and risk reduction. Political measures should quickly restore market access, so that the knots in the food chain are not broken.

They must also prioritize the well-being and livelihoods of all people, especially those who live in fragile contexts. Only in this way can we mitigate the impact of the crisis, reduce food loss and waste and contribute to the realization of the adequate right to food.

Excerpt:

Improving the genetic quality of seeds in Somalia. Credit: Mustafa Saeed /FAO

By Juan Carlos García y Cebolla
ROME, Jul 15 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some lesser-known realities, or some we had not wanted to think about, and exposed its consequences for the right of people to feed themselves in dignity.

In distant places, from the United States to Germany, the United Kingdom or Spain, contagion hotspots among workers in meat processing plants have been reported. In Florida, Ontario or Catalonia, outbreaks have been associated with the harvesting of fruits and vegetables, which also requires temporary labour.

What the pandemic highlights is not a new issue, but the consequence of that deeply rooted idea over the last two centuries that food should be cheap, instead of adequate and accessible to all

In many of these cases, what we find are unfair socioeconomic conditions -although not necessarily illegal ones. The reduction of food prices is frequently achieved through migrant labour, which due to its circumstances finds working and living conditions that increase the risk of contagion (overcrowding or lack of hygiene services). 

It is not that the pandemic causes the poor working conditions and lower wages than are necessary for a decent life, it is simply shedding light on what happens in normal periods. In times of the pandemic, the cost of these “savings” increases: besides the suffering of workers, there is a high cost to the entire population, as local lockdowns and fears of infections due to outbreaks have shown.

What the pandemic highlights is not a new issue, but the consequence of that deeply rooted idea over the last two centuries that food should be cheap, instead of adequate and accessible to all.

At first glance, it seems reasonable that the lower the food prices are, the more accessible food becomes for the population. But keeping down the price of food at any cost is a risk, as the market may not be willing to pay the cost of unwanted damage to people’s health, their living conditions and nature.

Some practices that in the short run allow for the production of food’s raw materials at low prices, by replacing forests with industrial palm plantations or with other types of intensive monocultures that degrade soils, are destructive to the environment. 

Juan Carlos García y Cebolla. Credit: FAO

The impact can also be seen in millions of small farmers, herders and fisherfolk who suffer from food insecurity and malnutrition despite producing 80% of the world’s food. We also find that child labour forms part of the equation that lowers the prices of products such as cocoa.

This can be partially addressed through social policies, such as income transfers to ensure access to food for vulnerable groups, or school policies supported by income transfers to fight against child labour. But these policies have limitations if they are not accompanied by greater awareness on the part of citizens and a change in their behaviour as consumers. Certain alternatives that combine rules and market dynamics can help to avoid some of these negative effects and modify consumers´ preferences, as well as economic and food policies.

In recent decades, certification systems have proved to be useful tools. However, some systems should strengthen their coherence and take into consideration food sustainability. For example, some food denominations or geographical indications are identified with ecological and responsible production models, even when in reality, a part may be produced under unfair labour and social conditions. 

We cannot remain as impassive witnesses. We must face these kinds of challenges. At the international level, there are multiple governance mechanisms for food and global security with this mandate. A clear exponent is the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the only platform of the United Nations System in which States, civil society and the private sector participate.

Food systems and the effects of COVID-19 will be discussed at the next CFS sessions, which will be held in October. This could be a good opportunity for multiple stakeholders to make progress in responding to these problems from a human rights approach and perspective. 

Excerpt: