A girl helps her family peeling cassava in Acará, in the northeast of Brazil's Amazon jungle. More than five million children are chronically malnourished in Latin America, a region sliding backwards with respect to the goal of eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, while obesity, which affects seven million children, is on the rise. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Oct 14 2018 (IPS)

For the third consecutive year, South America slid backwards in the global struggle to achieve zero hunger by 2030, with 39 million people living with hunger and five million children suffering from malnutrition.

“It’s very distressing because we’re not making progress. We’re not doing well, we’re going in reverse. You can accept this in a year of great drought or a crisis somewhere, but when it’s happened three years in a row, that’s a trend,” reflected Julio Berdegué, FAO’s highest authority in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The regional representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations said it is cause for concern that it is not Central America, the poorest subregion, that is failing in its efforts, but the South American countries that have stagnated."More than five million children in Latin America are permanently malnourished. In a continent of abundant food, a continent of upper-middle- and high-income countries, five million children ... It's unacceptable." -- Julio Berdegué

“More than five million children in Latin America are permanently malnourished. In a continent of abundant food, a continent of upper-middle- and high-income countries, five million children … It’s unacceptable,” he said in an interview with IPS at the agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago.

“They are children who already have scars in their lives. Children whose lives have already been marked, even though countries, governments, civil society, NGOs, churches, and communities are working against this. The development potential of a child whose first months and years of life are marked by malnutrition is already radically limited for his entire life,” he said.

What can the region do to move forward again? In line with this year’s theme of World Food Day, celebrated Oct. 16, “Our actions are our future. A zero hunger world by 2030 is possible”, Berdegué underlined the responsibility of governments and society as a whole.

Governments, he said, must “call us all together, facilitate, support, promote job creation and income generation, especially for people from the weakest socioeconomic strata.”

In addition, he stressed that policies for social protection, peace and the absence of conflict and addressing climate change are also required.

New foods to improve nutrition

In the small town of Los Muermos, near Puerto Montt, 1,100 kilometers south of Santiago, nine women and two male algae collectors are working to create new foods, with the aim of helping to curb both under- and over-nutrition, in Chile and in neighboring countries. Their star product is jam made with cochayuyo (Durvillaea antarctica), a large bull kelp species that is the dominant seaweed in southern Chile.

“I grew up on the water. I’ve been working along the sea for more than 30 years, as a shore gatherer,” said Ximena Cárcamo, 48, president of the Flor del Mar fishing cooperative.

Julio Berdegué, FAO regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, in his office at the agency’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile, during an interview with IPS to discuss the setback with regard to reaching the zero hunger target in the region. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The seaweed gatherer told IPS from Los Muermos about the great potential of cochayuyo and other algae “that boost health and nutrition because they have many benefits for people,” in a region with high levels of poverty and social vulnerability, which translate into under-nutrition.

“We are adding value to products that we have in our locality. We want people to consume them and that’s why we made jam because children don’t eat seaweed and in Chile we have so many things that people don’t consume and that could help improve their diet,” she explained.

In the first stage, the women, with the support of the Aquaculture and Fishing Centre for Applied Research, identified which seaweed have a high nutritional value, are rich in minerals, proteins, fiber and vitamins, and have low levels of sugar.

The seaweed gatherers created a recipe book, “cooking with seaweed from the sea garden”, including sweet and salty recipes such as cochayuyo ice cream, rice pudding and luche and reineta ceviche with sea chicory.

Now the project aims to create high value-added food such as energy bars.

“We want to reach schools, where seaweed is not consumed. That’s why we want to mix them with dried fruit from our sector,” said Cárcamo, insisting that a healthy and varied diet introduced since childhood is the way to combat malnutrition, as well as the “appalling” levels of overweight and obesity that affects Chile, as well as the rest of Latin America.

The paradox of obesity

“Obesity is killing us…it kills more people than organised crime,” Berdegué warned, pointing out that in terms of nutrition the region is plagued by under-nutrition on the one hand and over-nutrition on the other.

“Nearly 60 percent of the region’s population is overweight. There are 250 million candidates for diabetes, colon cancer or stroke,” he said.

He explained that “there are 105 million obese people, who are key candidates for these diseases. More than seven million children are obese with problems of self-esteem and problems of emotional and physical development. They are children who are candidates to die young,” he said.

According to Berdegué, this problem “is growing wildly…there are four million more obese people in the region each year.”

A seaweed gatherer carries cochayuyo harvested from rocks along Chile’s Pacific coast. The cultivation and commercialisation of cochayuyo and other kinds of seaweed is being promoted in different coastal areas of the country, to provide new foods to improve nutrition in the country. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The latest statistic for 2016 reported 105 million obese people in Latin America and the Caribbean, up from 88 million only four years earlier.

In view of this situation, the FAO regional representative stressed the need for a profound transformation of the food system.

“How do we produce, what do we produce, what do we import, how is it distributed, what is access like in your neighborhood? What do you do if you live in a neighborhood where the only store, that is 500 meters away, only sells ultra-processed food and does not sell vegetables or fruits?” he asked.

Berdegué harshly criticised “advertising, which tells us every day that good eating is to go sit in a fast food restaurant and eat 2,000 calories of junk as if that were entirely normal.”

Change of policies as well as habits

“You have to change habits, yes, but you have to change policies as well. There are countries, such as the small Caribbean island nations, that depend fundamentally on imported food. And the vast majority of these foods are ultra-processed, many of which are food only in name because they’re actually just chemicals, fats and junk,” he said.

He insisted that “we lack production of fruits, vegetables and dairy products in many countries or trade policies that encourage imports of these foods and not so much junk food.”

And to move toward the goal of zero hunger in just 12 years, Berdegué also called for generating jobs and improving incomes, because that “is the best policy against hunger.”

The second of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which make up the 2030 Development Agenda, is achieving zero hunger through eight specific targets.

Poverty making a comeback

“In Latin America we don’t lack food. People just can’t afford to buy it,” Berdegué said.

He also called for countries to strengthen policies to protect people living in poverty and extreme poverty.

According to the latest figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), poverty in the region grew between 2014 and 2017, when it affected 186 million people, 30.7 percent of the population. Extreme poverty affects 10 percent of the total: 61 million people.

Moreover, in this region where 82 percent of the population is urban, 48.6 percent of the rural population is poor, compared to 26.8 percent of the urban population, and this inequality drives the rural exodus to the cities.

“FAO urges countries to rethink social protection policies, particularly for children. We cannot allow ourselves to slow down in eradicating malnutrition and hunger among children,” Berdegué said.

He also advocated for the need for peace and the cessation of conflicts because “we have all the evidence in the world that when you lose peace, hunger soars. It is automatic. The great hunger hotspots and problems in the world today are in places where we are faced with conflict situations.”

“We have countries in the region where there is upheaval and governments have to know that this social and political turmoil causes hunger,” he concluded.

Excerpt:

Tapantí National Park lies east from the capital San José covering more than 50.000 hectares of forest, which in turn provides valuable watershed protection. Picture: Diego Arguedas Ortiz / IPS

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
SAN JOSE, Jul 26 2016 (IPS)

While Latin America keeps expanding its agricultural frontier by converting large areas of forest, one country, Costa Rica, has taken a different path and is now a role model for a peaceful coexistence between food production and sustainable forestry.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) flagship publication The State of the World’s Forests revealed that commercial agriculture was responsible for 70 percent of forest conversion in Latin America between 2000 and 2010.

“What FAO mentions about the rest of Latin America, clearing forests for agriculture or livestock, happened in Costa Rica during the 1970s and 1980s,” Jorge Mario Rodríguez, the director of Costa Rica’s National Fund for Forestry Finance (Fonafifo), told IPS.“Agricultural development doesn’t necessarily require the expansion of croplands; rather, it demands the coexistence with the forest and the intensification of production by improving national farmers’ productivity and competitiveness" -- Octavio Ramírez.

At its worst moment, during the 1980s, Costa Rica’s forest cover was limited to 21 to 25 percent of its land area. Now, forests account for 53 percent of the country’s 51,000 square kilometers, with almost five million inhabitants.

The country has managed to hold and even push back the advance of the agricultural frontier while strengthening its food security, according to FAO, which says that Costa Rica’s malnutrition rate is under 5 percent, something the organisation accounts as “zero hunger”.

“Here’s a learned lesson: there’s no need to chop down forests to produce more crops,” FAO Costa Rica director Octavio Ramírez told IPS.

Despite the increase in forest cover, FAO states the average value of food production per person increased by 26 percent in the period 1990–1992 to 2011–2013.

FAO attributes this change “to structural changes in the economy and the priority given to forest conservation and sustainable management” which were seized upon by Costa Rican authorities in a specific context.

“It has to do with the livestock crisis during the 1980s but also the priority given by Costa Rica to forest management,” said Ramírez, born in Nicaragua but Costa Rican by naturalisation.

In The State of the World’s Forests report, launched on July 18, FAO explains that Costa Rican forests were regarded as “land banks” that could be converted as necessary to meet agricultural needs.

“To keep the forest intact was looked upon as a synonym of laziness and unwillingness to work,” Ramírez explained.

But there were two key elements during the 1980s that led to better forest protection, the environmental economist Juan Robalino told IPS.

José Alberto Chacón weeds between bean plants on his small farm in Pacayas, on the slopes of the Irazú volcano, in Costa Rica. The terraces help control water run-off that would otherwise cause soil erosion. Picture: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

Meat prices plummeted while eco-tourism became a leading economic activity in the country, explained the specialist from Universidad de Costa Rica and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center.

“This paved the way for very interesting policy-making, like the creation of the Payments for Environmental Services (PES) program,” said Robalino, one of the top experts in Costa Rican forest cover.

FAO states that a big part of Costa Rica’s success comes from PES, a financial incentive that acknowledges those ecosystem services resulting from forest conservation and management, reforestation, natural regeneration and agroforestry systems.

The program, established in 1997 and ran by Fonafifo, has a simple logic at its core: the Costa Rican state pays landowners who protect forest cover as they provide an ecosystem service.

From its launch until 2015, a total of 318 million dollars were invested in forest-related PES projects.  64 percent of the funding came from fossil fuel tax, 22 percent from World Bank credits and the remainder from other sources.

After studying PES impacts for years, Robalino explains the challenge for 2016 is to look for landowners with less incentives to protect their forests and bring them on board with the financial argument.

“The goal is to always look for those who’ll change their behavior because of the program,” Robalino stated.

Because of budget limitations, the program must decide which properties to work with, as applications exceed its capacity fivefold, according to Fonafifo director Rodríguez.

Priorities for PES funding include ecosystem services like watershed protection, carbon capture, scenic beauty and biodiversity conservation.

“Costa Rica learned that forests are worth more for their environmental services than because of their timber,” Rodríguez pointed out.

Fonafifo is now looking for new partnerships with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to launch a new program focused on small landowners who require more technical support, a road also favoured by FAO.

“Agricultural development doesn’t necessarily require the expansion of croplands; rather, it demands the coexistence with the forest and the intensification of production by improving national farmers’ productivity and competitiveness,” said Ramírez, FAO’s local representative.

Both FAO and local experts interviewed by IPS agreed that PES seized upon a national and international crossroads to launch a program that despite its success, is not the only cause for Costa Rica’s recovery.

“Costa Rica’s success cannot be exclusively attributed to PES since other policies, like the creation of the National Protected Areas System and its education system, also played a major role,” Rodríguez explained.

Beyond this program, the country has a longstanding environmental tradition: close to a quarter of its territory is under some type of protection, the forestry law bans forest conversion, and sports hunting, open-air metallic mining and oil exploitation are all illegal.

The country’s Constitution declares citizens’ right to a healthy environment in its article 50.

“I remember my school teacher telling us students that we had to protect the forest,” Robalino recalled.

However, Costa Rica’s forest recovery didn’t reach all ecosystems in the country and left mangroves behind. Their area has diminished in the past decades.

According to the country’s 2014 report to the Convention on Biological Diversity, mangrove coverage fell from 64.452 hectares in 1979 to 37.420 hectares in 2013, a 42 percent loss.

This ecosystem is particularly vulnerable to large monoculture plantations on the Pacific coast, where the local Environmental Administrative Tribunal denounced the disappearance of 400 hectares between 2010 and 2014, due to human-induced fire, logging and invasion.

A panel in the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean, held Nov. 15-17. Second from the right is indigenous leader Ruth Buendía, who represented rural communities in the Forum. Credit: Aramís Castro/IPS

By Milagros Salazar and Aramis Castro
LIMA, Nov 17 2015 (IPS)

Lawmakers in the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean decided at a regional meeting to work as a bloc for the passage of laws on food security – an area in which countries in the region have show uneven progress.

The Nov. 15-17 Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger (PFH) in Lima, Peru drew more than 60 legislators from 17 countries in the region and guest delegations from parliaments in Africa, Asia and Europe.

The coordinator of the regional Front, Ecuadorean legislator María Augusta Calle, told IPS that the challenge is to “harmonise” the region’s laws to combat poverty and hunger in the world’s most unequal region.

Calle added that a number of laws on food security and sovereignty have been passed in Latin America, and the challenge now is to standardise the legislation in all of the countries participating in the PFH to strengthen policies that bolster family farming.“We have reduced hunger by 50 percent (since 1990), but this is still insufficient. We cannot continue to live in a world where food is a business and not a right. It cannot be possible that 80 percent of those who produce the food themselves suffer from hunger.” -- María Augusta Calle

In Latin America, 81 percent of domestically consumed food products come from small farmers, who guarantee food security in the region, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which has advised the PFH since its creation in 2009.

Twelve of the 17 Latin American countries participating in the PFH already have food security and sovereignty laws, Calle said. But it has not been an easy task, she added, pointing out that several of the laws were approved only after long delays.

During the inauguration of the Sixth Forum, she said the region has reduced hunger “by 50 percent (since 1990), but this is still insufficient. We cannot continue to live in a world where food is a business and not a right. It cannot be possible that 80 percent of those who produce the food themselves suffer from hunger.”

The fight against hunger is an uphill task, and the forum’s host country is a clear illustration of this.

In Peru, the draft law on food security was only approved by Congress on Nov. 12, after two years of debate. The legislature finally reacted, just three days before the Sixth Forum began in the country’s capital. But the bill still has to be signed into law and codified by the executive branch, in order to be put into effect.

“How can it be possible for a government to put forth objections to a law on food security?” Peruvian Vice President Marisol Espinoza asked during the opening of the Sixth Forum.

Espinoza, who left the governing Peruvian Nationalist Party in October, took the place of President Ollanta Humala, who had been invited to inaugurate the Sixth Forum.

Display of native varieties of potatoes at a food fair during the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger held Nov. 15-17 in Lima. Defending native products forms part of the right to food promoted by the legislators from Latin America and the Caribbean. Credit: Aramís Castro/IPS

The coordinator of the Peruvian chapter of the PFH, Jaime Delgado, told IPS that he hopes the government will sign the new food security bill into law without setting forth observations.

Indigenous leader Ruth Buendía, who took part in the Sixth Forum in representation of rural communities in Peru, said the government should pass laws to protect peasant farmers because they are paid very little for their crops, even though they supply the markets in the cities.

“What the government has to do is regulate this, for the citizens,” Buendía, who belongs to the Asháninka people, told IPS. “Why do we have a government that is not going to defend us? As we say in our community: ‘why do I have a father (the government)?’ If they want investment, ok, but they have to regulate.”

Another controversial question in the case of Peru is the more than two-year delay in the codification and implementation of the law on healthy food for children and adolescents, passed in May 2013, which requires that companies that produce food targeting this age group accurately label the ingredients.

Congressman Delgado said food companies are lobbying against the law, which cannot be put into effect until it is codified.

“It would be pathetic if after so much sacrifice to get this law passed, the government failed to codify it because of the pressure from business interests,” said Delgado.

He said that in Peru, over 200 million dollars are invested in advertising for junk food every year, according to a 2012 study by the Radio and Television Consultative Council.

Calle, from Ecuador, said the members of the PFH decided to call for the entrance into effect of the Peruvian law, in the Sixth Forum’s final declaration.

“The 17 countries (that belong to the PFH) are determined to see the law on healthy food codified in Peru. We believe it is indispensable. It is a wonderful law,” said the legislator.

Peasant farmers from the Andes highlands dancing during one of the opening acts at the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger held Nov. 15-17 in Lima. More than 80 percent of the food consumed in the region is produced by small farmers, while the same percentage of hungry people are paradoxically found in rural areas. Credit: Aramís Castro/IPS

She explained that in her country food and beverage companies have been required to use labels showing the ingredients, despite the opposition from the business sector.

“In Ecuador we have had a fabulous experience (regarding labels for junk food) which we would like businesses here in Peru to understand and not be afraid of,” Calle said.

The regional coordinator of the PFH said that to address the problem of food being seen as business rather than a right, “we need governments and parliaments committed to the public, rather than to transnational corporations.”

Another country that has made progress is Brazil, where laws in favour of the right to food include one that requires that at least 30 percent of the food that goes into school meals is purchased from local small farmers, Nazareno Fonseca, a member of the PFH regional consultative council, told IPS.

Calle said Brazil’s efforts to boost food security, in the context of its “Zero Hunger” programme, marked a watershed in Latin America.

The PFH regional coordinator noted that the person responsible for implementing the programme in the crucial first two years (2003-2004) as extraordinary food security minister was José Graziano da Silva, director general of FAO since 2011.

Spanish Senator José Miguel Camacho said it is important for legislators from Latin America and the Caribbean to act as a bloc because “there is still a long way to go, but these forums contribute to that goal.”

The commitments in the Sixth Forum’s final declaration will focus on three main areas: food security, where the PFH is working on a single unified framework law; school feeding; and efforts to fight overnutrition, obesity and junk food.

Peru’s health minister, Aníbal Velásquez, said the hope is that “the commitments approved at the Sixth Forum will translate into laws.”

And the president of the Peruvian Congress, Luis Iberico, said people did not enjoy true citizenship if basic rights were not guaranteed and hunger and poverty still existed.

The indigenous leader Buendía, for her part, asked the PFH legislators for a greater presence of the authorities in rural areas, in order for political declarations to produce tangible results.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations believes that Africa is entering a new era with greater investment in agriculture. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Matthew Newsome
ADDIS ABABA , Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

Sub-Saharan Africa may be home to six of the world’s 10-fastest growing economies, but it also has a majority of the countries that are suffering from a food crisis.

In fact, of the 20 countries in the world suffering from prolonged food shortages, 17 are in Africa, according to José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The commitment to making agricultural development and the eradication of hunger the focus of Africa’s growing economy reached a new consensus when African and international leaders and key stakeholders met at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa from Jun. 30 to Jul. 1. At the summit, leaders agreed to renew their partnership and commitment to “Zero Hunger” in Africa by 2025.

Da Silva helped launch and implement the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programme in his native Brazil, which prioritised investment in poor farmers through social protection nets, and lifted 28 million Brazilians out of poverty.

In this interview with IPS, Da Silva says that he is confidant that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of hungry people in African countries by 2015 can be reached and that the goal is not too ambitious. The eight MDGs, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

He believes that Africa is entering a new era with greater investment in agriculture, and that stronger coordination between governments, civil society organisations and the private sector would make the goal of zero hunger in Africa realistic by 2025. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: Is the goal of eradicating hunger in Africa by 2025 really achievable? And how does this campaign plan to achieve this target?

A: We have proven that it was possible to achieve the first MDG to halve hunger by 2015. Eleven countries already have achieved this in advance of the deadline…and several other countries are on track to achieve this goal in Africa. We believe that if the leaders of Africa get together with civil society and the private sector to achieve the same goal of eradicating hunger – we can do it by 2025.

Why am I optimistic about that goal? Because, firstly, Africa is on a very special momentum, it is the region in the world with the second-highest level of economic growth; it also has the resources available.

Furthermore, agricultural development is only just starting to take priority in Africa. We have on the continent millions of family farmers working at subsistence level. If we can convince them to increase their production and to adopt new technologies that are already available, then this will be more than enough to eradicate hunger in the region.

Q:  Only 11 out of 38 African countries have already achieved the MDG of halving hunger by 2015. With only two years left to realise this goal, has this target been unrealistic? And why do you think the Zero Hunger goal is any less ambitious?

A: We must remember that when we start to walk, the first kilometres are always very difficult. It requires some time to get accustomed and grow familiar with the different factors involved in this transition and also to understand what is available as support. We have everything in place – we are working to coordinate the governments, CSOs and the private sector so that they can work together in solidarity.

I think we still have time to achieve the MDG of halving hunger in Africa by 2015. We have 920 days from now, that is not a short period of time. Hungry people don’t have a lot of time either – they cannot afford to wait. What is important is that African governments have the message – they know what the objective is and they know how to meet this objective. We are not sending a man to the moon. It is not complicated. Simple steps like scaling up practices that are already implemented in many African countries will go very far.

Q: Are you confident that there is the political and social will from African governments to eradicate hunger?

A: That is exactly what this summit is about. This is a landmark occasion for African leaders to demonstrate without delay to their neighbours that there is the will to eliminate hunger, it is on the way and now more than ever before is the time to work together.

Q: Some of the highest economic growth rates in the world are being experienced by African countries. And yet one in four Africans still suffer from chronic hunger. Is economic growth alone enough to end hunger?

A: This is the most important lesson being learnt by this summit. Growth and increasing food production are not enough. In Africa we need to look particularly at access to food.

Many undernourished farmers suffer from not having access to land, while others cannot buy the food they need because it is not cheap enough for farmers to buy according to their salary, while many of them are jobless and without income. The challenge is to approach all these things at the same time. But we can do it. This has already been demonstrated and achieved by the countries that have already halved hunger rates by 2015.

Q: Global food prices continue to be volatile. How is this impacting the effort to reduce hunger in Africa?

A: This is one of our greatest challenges. We can boost resilience of food producers using what FAO already has in place. FAO has implemented a monitoring system and this has helped us a lot. But we need to move beyond that.

This October, FAO will have a second meeting with the G20 Ministers of Agriculture in Rome. We hope to address important factors like regional emergency stocks and how to improve our statistics. Moreover, we will look at how to improve inter-governmental cooperation when dealing with emergency situations such as the famine in Somalia two years ago.

If we could improve this effort to bring more global governance to the food security issue it will help a lot. This is not a problem for the African countries – this is a problem that needs to be solved globally. The G8 and the G20 countries need to especially help those countries that are not part of these two groups and are suffering, as they have the responsibility to generate effective global governance.

Excerpt:

Zimbabwean farmer Kindness Paradza (right) and his employee. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

By Thalif Deen
ROME, Jun 14 2013 (IPS)

As the United Nations prepares to launch an ambitious post-2015 development agenda, the message from one of its Rome-based agencies is unequivocal: the eradication of hunger and malnutrition should remain a high priority when the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) end in 2015.

In its flagship annual report released here, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) acknowledges that the world has made some progress on hunger and malnutrition, but stresses there is still “a long way” to go to resolve the lingering crisis.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva is adamant: “We must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.”

The only effective answer to food insecurity is political commitment at the national level, reinforced at the regional and global levels by the international community of donors and international organisations, he says.

As examples he cites the Committee on World Food Security and the Zero Hunger Challenge initiated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban has singled out the “spectacular” economic growth in some countries that has made possible to cut extreme poverty in half.

“But the tide of prosperity has not lifted all boats,” he says. “To succeed before the end of 2015, we need a concerted effort focused on support for smallholders and better nutrition for women and children.”

Meanwhile, the FAO report The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) says “the social and economic costs of malnutrition are unconscionably high.”

The numbers are staggering: 3.5 trillion dollars – or 500 dollars per person – in lost productivity to the global economy.

In comparable numbers, “that’s almost the entire annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Germany, Europe’s largest economy,” says the report.

Vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies, along with obesity and overweight, are largely responsible for the loss in productivity and the high cost of health care.

Asked about the prediction by a U.N. high-level panel of eminent persons that hunger and poverty would be eradicated by 2030, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, FAO’s deputy director-general for economic and social development, told IPS: “Yes, hunger can be eradicated by 2030.

“But this will not just happen, (because) a series of important measures must be taken for hunger to be eradicated,” he added.

These include political and economic measures, in addition to appropriate governance mechanisms, he said.

“We refer to the eradication of hunger in the narrow sense – not food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies. We do not really discuss ‘poverty eradication’ as suggested in your questions. What do we mean by hunger eradication?” he asked.

In a more narrow sense, people who suffer from chronic hunger are those who do not have enough to eat to lead healthy and productive lives, according to FAO’s definition of “undernourishment”.

There are about 868 million people who suffer from chronic hunger (undernourishment) due to insufficient dietary energy (calories).

It should be noted that the “hunger line” is conservatively defined in terms of the calories needed for a sedentary lifestyle, Sundaram added.

The U.N. secretary-general’s “Zero Hunger Challenge” (ZHC) has five elements.

The ZHC deals not only with hunger in the above sense, but also seeks to eliminate stunting due to micronutrient deficiencies, ensure agriculture that is sustainable, minimise food waste and losses, and double poor farmers’ incomes.

In terms of key measures, Sundaram said explicit political commitments to eradicate hunger must be backed up by resources, whether these are commitments at the G8/G20 global level, or at the national/regional level, such as the Maputo Declaration in which African nations committed 10 percent of GDP to be invested in agriculture.

Evidence-based and inclusive governance mechanisms, with appropriate accountability measures, must also be in place, he said.

Sundaram said enacting appropriate hunger eradication policies and investment programmes requires that the interests of the poor, most vulnerable and marginalised are adequately represented.

This is necessary in order to ensure that their specific needs and concerns are addressed, that progress is monitored, policies updated, lessons learned are applied, and decision-makers and other stakeholders – including civil society and the private sector in addition to governments – are held accountable for the achievement of agreed objectives and targets.

On the question of resources, FAO estimated in 2011 (with a 2009 reference year) that 50.2 billion dollars of public investment is needed annually for the world to eradicate hunger by 2025, a sum to be complemented by private investment.

A study by Josef Schmidhuber and Jelle Bruinsma in the FAO book Safeguarding Food Security in Volatile Global Markets argues for a broad-based “twin-track” approach to hunger eradication, addressing both immediate needs (through safety nets), and underlying causes related to rural infrastructure development, market access, natural resource development and conservation, research, development and extension, and support for rural institutions.

Lastly, on lessons learned – and linked to the question of poverty reduction – the 2012 State of Food Security in the World (SOFI) examined a number of success stories in hunger reduction and concluded that “economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition”.

This joint publication by FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) examines about half a dozen issues for successful hunger reduction, including the need to involve and reach the poor; the emphasis on agricultural growth involving smallholders, especially women; the need for “nutrition-sensitive” agricultural development; the need to ensure that social protection mechanisms are in place and an overall conducive environment for pro-poor, long term economic growth.

Author Malcolm Gladwell draws on the science of epidemiology in his book “The Tipping Point” to explain how ideas spread through a population, in the same way as an infectious disease can proceed from a few cases to a full-blown pandemic.

Dr. David Nabarro. Credit: UN Photo/Joao Araujo Pinto

In previous years I have worked on HIV and influenza pandemics: I have seen how rapidly contagion can spread. Recently, I have asked myself whether the world is near the tipping point for ending hunger. Has the momentum reached a critical mass? Is it reasonable to contemplate a world free of malnutrition? I believe it is.

In recent years many leaders have made commitments to tackle food insecurity and malnutrition. The intensity of focus and action has mushroomed in 2013 and in June it is higher than ever before.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ (FAO) annual flagship publication, the “State of Food and Agriculture: Sustainable Food Systems for Better Nutrition”, was the first edition since 1947 to focus on maximising the nutritional impact of agriculture and food systems. It follows the decision by the countries that govern FAO to make the eradication of hunger and malnutrition its number one strategic objective.

World Environment Day focused on the issue of food loss and waste, with the U.N. Environment Programme and FAO teaming up in a campaign titled “Think. Eat. Save. Reduce your foodprint.” Given that one-third of all food produced is discarded between harvest and your home, minimising food waste is essential. Pope Francis said it best when he said that “wasting food is like stealing from the table of the poor.”

The renowned medical journal The Lancet’s latest edition on nutrition includes evidence that malnutrition is responsible for almost half of all child deaths – a staggering three million lives per year. Of these, 800,000 babies died because they were born too small or too soon, usually because their mother was malnourished. It estimated that scaling up 10 interventions could save one million children’s lives and prevent chronic malnutrition in 33 million more. The burden of scientific proof is now overwhelming.

Just ahead of the G8 Summit, the governments of the United Kingdom and Brazil, together with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, co-hosted an international summit on “Nutrition for Growth.” Several hundred high-level participants committed to reducing the burden of malnutrition on individuals, societies and the economy."The Zero Hunger Challenge is not a plan or a programme. It is a compass..." -- Dr. David Nabarro

More than 90 countries, development partners, civil society organisations and businesses pledged to save 1.7 million lives and prevent chronic malnutrition in 20 million children. They promised more than four billion dollars in new finance for nutrition.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Hyde Park in support of a campaign called “Enough Food IF” and there were major events in 15 other cities throughout the world. Civil society groups from more than 30 countries then met in Washington DC to discuss how to achieve better results. These are among the thousands of citizens throughout the world who will check that the promises are kept.

This whirlwind month is an example of the increasing momentum building towards an end to hunger.

As the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals nears, the international community is considering the post-2015 development agenda and sustainable development goals. Though negotiations are still underway, there is growing support among governments and other stakeholders for food security and good nutrition for all people to be one of the goals.

Forty countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America are at the front of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. They are supported by hundreds of partners from civil society, business and the development community, who are aligned behind national nutrition plans, designed and owned in-country. Results are already visible with many reducing the percentage of their children who are chronically undernourished.

Almost one year ago the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sensed the tipping point was near. He threw down the gauntlet at the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20 by launching his Zero Hunger Challenge. In our world of plenty, he said, not a single person should go hungry.

Ban, who comes from the Republic of Korea, knows from personal experience the indignity of hunger. He has seen how people can overcome hunger by making food and nutrition security a top national priority, and making sure that all departments of government, as well as scientists, farmers, responsible businesses and civil society work together to make it happen.

The secretary-general’s vision is a world in which every man, woman and child enjoys their right to food, and where all food systems are sustainable. The Zero Hunger Challenge is not a plan or a programme. It is a compass, setting the direction for countries, organisations and individuals who choose their own paths towards zero.

Fifteen countries are moving forward in line with the Zero Hunger Challenge. Dozens of others have formed multi-party parliamentary groups in support of ending hunger. The 23 international organisations which make up the High Level Task Force on Global Food Security are supporting countries which take up the Challenge.

Through all of this, the Committee on World Food Security, the preeminent body for global governance of food, has come into its own. Made up of governments, civil society and the private sector, the Committee has developed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. It is working on principles for responsible agricultural investment, and on protracted food insecurity in countries in crisis.

These are the reasons I am optimistic that the world will soon reach a tipping point for ending hunger. Now is the time for promises that have been made translate into a steep decrease in the number – now 870 million – of people who are still hungry today. It will not be easy, and progress may not be linear, but we have an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate one of humanity’s most ancient scourges.

*Dr. David Nabarro is the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition.

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 20 2013 (IPS)

Providing school meals for 45 million children is a remarkable achievement for Brazil. But the programme faces specific difficulties, as well as the generic problems plaguing any national plan in this vast country of more than 192 million people.

Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) has evolved from the strictly welfare-oriented approach it had when it was created 58 years ago, into a multi-purpose development strategy with educational goals and a focus on stimulating local economies. IPS sat down with its coordinator, Albaneide Peixinho, to discuss its accomplishments and challenges.

Q: The PNAE has existed since 1955. How has it progressed since then?

A: Nowadays it is based on several principles, like the human right to adequate nutrition and the aim of ensuring food and nutritional security by means of free and universal provision for all children and adolescents enrolled in the public education system.

Albaneide Peixinho, coordinator of Brazil’s National School Meals Programme.
Credit: Divulgaçao Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educaçao

And also on equity and the constitutional right to school meals as a way of guaranteeing equal access to food.

The PNAE is part of the federal government’s Zero Hunger strategy, which encompasses 30 programmes designed to fight the causes of hunger and contribute to eradicating extreme poverty.

The government’s social vision was a key factor in the dramatic fall in poverty in this country, and it was reflected in the PNAE, which since 2003 saw its funding increased by 300 percent and its services expanded to middle-school students.

At the same time, the requirement that the programme must purchase produce from local family farms gives it an important role in reducing social inequality.

Q: What has it achieved?

A: The PNAE was created simply as assistance to some schoolchildren. Now it reaches 45 million students in basic education for the 200 days of the school year. Over the years it has accumulated experience and has taken on an ever wider scope, promoting improvement in educational indicators, economic and social development and social participation in health care, by teaching good eating habits.

The 1988 constitution guaranteed the right (to free school meals) of all pupils enrolled in primary schools. As of 1994, the programme which previously was centralised, with a governing body that drew up menus, bought food and distributed it throughout the country, was converted into a locally managed programme governed by means of agreements.

Since 1998 it has been further improved, for example by insisting on respect for the eating habits and the farming preferences of each locality, and the creation of school nutrition councils as oversight bodies, with representatives of parents, students, teachers, the community and the executive and legislative branches.

One of the main legal frameworks is law 11,947 of 2009, which stipulates that at least 30 percent of the resources of the National Education Development Fund be devoted to buying food produced on family farms, as well as providing the school meal service to all primary education students, including both children and adults.

Q: What problems does the programme face?

A: There are difficulties that are specific to the programme, and others that are inherent to any programme covering the whole of Brazil: the size of the country, the varied agricultural activities in the different regions, and the low productive capacity of family agriculture when it comes to supplying demand.

Other problems include differences in local customs, the different nutritional needs of students, lack of infrastructure to store, transport and prepare meals, a lack of space to set up school lunchrooms, as well as challenges in developing ongoing food and nutritional education that is intrinsic to the educational process.

There is also “competition” between the meals offered by the school and canteens or bars selling sweets, fizzy drinks, salty or fatty snacks, the “favourites” of children and adolescents. A 2009 resolution restricts the amount of fat, sugar and salt in PNAE meals.

Q: And what challenges does the programme intend to address?

A: We plan to carry out a thorough assessment of the nutritional needs of students and match them with adequate nutrition that they find acceptable, as well as with the farming culture and diets of every locality. Another challenge is finding professionals who are well-trained in this field.

Q: Is it possible to reach all primary schools, at federal, state and municipal levels?

A: The programme serves all schools that have formed their own school nutrition council and have hired a nutritionist. In 2012 there were 161,670 such schools, 83 percent of the total.

Q: How are the menus drawn up?

A: They need to be drawn up according to age range, type of school and the hours students spend in school. When two meals are served, at least 30 percent of daily nutritional requirements should be provided. In schools with a full-day curriculum, the minimum is 70 percent. (In Brazil, many schoolchildren attend either the morning or the afternoon shift.)

Q: Has it been demonstrated that school meals improve scholastic performance?

A: There is a variety of evidence on the role of nutrition in neurological, cognitive and intellectual development in childhood. Proteins, calcium, iron, iodine, zinc, vitamins and fish oils fulfil essential functions, as shown by different studies.

The school environment favours the formation of habits. Habits are formed from birth, by means of family customs and those taught by society – at school, in social circles and by the media – up until adult life, when along with symbolic aspects they set the pattern of individual and societal consumption.

The PNAE encourages eating fruits, vegetables and pulses and prescribes food hygiene control, precepts that lead to an adequate supply and healthy intake. The earlier these habits are learned, the greater the probability that they will be continued in adulthood.

Excerpt:

Poverty and malnutrition are serious problems in rural Guatemala. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 29 2012 (IPS)

“I heard about the Zero Hunger plan on television, but unfortunately it has not arrived here,” complained Elías Ruíz, a small farmer in the southern community of Santa Odilia, about the Guatemalan government’s flagship programme to end poverty.

“Projects to increase production would benefit us, because without them, we have no way to support ourselves. They could help us with maize seeds, plantains (starchy bananas for cooking) and fertilisers, and techniques to improve production,” said Ruíz.

Every rainy season, Ruíz and 307 other families in Santa Odilia, in the municipality of Nueva Concepción in the province of Escuintla, have to deal with the fury of the Coyolate river which bursts its banks and floods their houses and food crops.

“Our cattle die and our maize and plantain crops are all destroyed; we have to start over,” he told IPS.

Like Ruíz, hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans suffering from food insecurity are still waiting for the Zero Hunger plan to reach them and their communities.

The programme was launched in February by right-wing President Otto Pérez Molina, a retired general, a month after he took office. But it has yet to become a reality for many of its potential beneficiaries.

“Too few resources are devoted to the fight against malnutrition, and there is a lack of coordination among the different institutions and public policy programmes,” said Jonathan Menkos, executive director of the Central American Institute of Fiscal Studies (ICEFI), a local NGO.

By the end of September, according to a study by ICEFI, only 55 percent of this year’s budget for food security and nutritional programmes, integrated into the new macro plan, had been executed

In the case of another programme, the “1,000 Day Window” which supports mothers from pregnancy until their children are two years old, only 36 percent of the budget had been disbursed.

Menkos told IPS that one problem of the package of programmes is its insufficient budget. As an example, he said investment in food and nutritional security for 2012 is 668 million dollars.

“Neighbouring countries like Honduras and Nicaragua, with lower levels of malnutrition, have invested about twice the amount Guatemala has done in recent years,” he said.

Menkos said another problem with Zero Hunger is the lack of clarity with respect to its resources, because it groups together and updates existing programmes and establishes new ones. When he inaugurated it, Pérez Molina said the plan would require 260 million dollars more than the present budget for the areas covered.

The plan brings together a series of scattered initiatives into a united programme of action, but its management is still uncoordinated between the ministries and agencies responsible for its different components.

This country has the highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in Central America, and one of the highest in the world, at 49.3 percent of children under five, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

In Guatemala, 54 percent of the country’s 15 million people live in poverty, and 13 percent in extreme poverty, especially in the rural areas that are home to 54 percent of the population.

To deal with these situations, Pérez Molina launched Zero Hunger, which includes actions like the programme for mothers, promotion of business chains for small rural producers, financial support and production of fortified maize tortillas, the staple food.

Among the government’s goals is tending to over one million children suffering from chronic malnutrition and reducing their number by 10 percent by 2016, the end of this government’s term of office.

However, there are several problems still to be solved in order to reach this goal.

“There are major challenges regarding institutional integration and coordination, and there is also a need to evaluate what is being done,” said Menkos.

This last point is key, according to Iván Yerovi, the deputy representative of UNICEF in Guatemala.

“In my view, this is the great commitment the country must make. It would be ideal to have more resources, but it is even more ideal to monitor and know how those funds are being used,” he told IPS.

“Unless we analyse each one of the interventions that are being made, it will be too late when we reach the sixth or eighth year to carry out a survey of mother and child health to find out the results,” he said.

Yerovi agreed with Menkos in his concern over the lack of disbursement of the budget for combating hunger in the country.

“This late in the year, the figures are not showing adequate implementation of the funds. This is a lesson we have learned, and this should be corrected,” he said.

NGOs also criticise the plan’s methodology.

Alejandro Aguirre of the Guatemalan Coordination of NGOs and Cooperatives told IPS “the government’s current policy is based on clientelism and paternalism, which in fact maintains poverty.”

Aguirre was referring to “Bolsa Segura”, a programme for distribution of food provisions to low-income families initiated by the government of social democratic president Álvaro Colom (2008-2012) that was heavily criticised as being used for political ends.

“They’re giveaways for the population that don’t solve the fundamental problems of malnutrition and guaranteeing the right to food,” he said.

Instead, Aquirre favoured productive projects for growing basic grains, with technical assistance to strengthen the peasant economy.

“The resources devoted to fighting malnutrition are minimal. The Zero Hunger programme is not taking off, and we are seeing a fragmented strategy, without interconnection between the different ministries in charge of the plan,” he said.

Despite everything, in Menkos and Yerovi’s view it was positive that the plan had put the issue of hunger higher up on the government agenda, reinforcing the trend of recent years.

And in September, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, on behalf of his foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, recognised and honoured Pérez Molina’s efforts to reduce malnutrition through the Zero Hunger plan.

The Brazilian government is stepping up South-South aid, to strengthen the South American giant’s status as a donor country and its international clout. It now provides assistance to 65 countries, and its financial aid has grown threefold in the last seven years.

Itamaraty Palace (Brazil’s foreign ministry), homebase for the country’s South-South development aid strategy.

A project to extend financing for food purchases to five countries in Africa has helped confirm that Brazil, traditionally a recipient of aid, has taken its place among the group of foreign donor countries.

The United Nations announced in late February that Brazil would provide 2.37 million dollars for a local food purchasing programme, to benefit small farmers and vulnerable populations in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal.

The project, carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), will thus draw on the expertise accumulated by Brazil in its own food purchasing programme, known by its Portuguese acronym, PAA.

The PAA buys agricultural products from small farmers and distributes them to vulnerable groups, including children and adolescents through school feeding programmes. Besides fighting hunger, it is aimed at strengthening local food production.

The PAA is a cornerstone of the country’s Zero Hunger strategy, launched by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) and continued by his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, both of whom are moderate leftists who belong to the Workers’ Party.

The programme, in conjunction with other anti-poverty policies, has helped reduce malnutrition by 25 percent and pulled 24 million people out of extreme poverty, according to Lula administration statistics.

“This is a way to help other governments develop policies of support for family farmers, who in this country are responsible for the production of 60 percent of the food consumed,” Marco Farani, director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), told IPS.

The PAA “works very well, and keeps farmers in the countryside, caring for their small plots of land and making them their source of subsistence and livelihood,” said Farani, whose agency operates under the foreign ministry.

The project is based on cooperation between FAO and the WFP in the production and supply of seeds and fertiliser, and the organisation of the purchase and distribution of food, among other aspects.

Since January, FAO has been headed by José Graziano da Silva, from Brazil.

In an interview with IPS in December, Graziano said he would bring to the U.N. organisation his experience as one of the architects of the Zero Hunger programme, in areas like the strengthening of local markets to produce higher quality food, reduce food waste, and lower costs.

Now, in association with organisations like the United Nations or in bilateral aid, Brazil wants to extend throughout the developing South its own successful initiatives like the PAA.

This new cooperation and development aid strategy has been taking shape since 2005, when Brazil, now the world’s sixth largest economy, earmarked 158 million dollars for foreign aid. That amount rose to nearly 363 million dollars in 2009 and to an estimated 400 million dollars in 2010, according to preliminary figures from the ABC.

Meanwhile, Brazil plans to dedicate 125 million dollars to technical cooperation over the next three years, more than double what this country will itself receive in international aid in that period.

“Today we are active in more than 65 countries, while three or four years ago we were only active in the Portuguese-language countries of Africa. We currently have cooperation projects in 38 African nations, and in Latin America,” Farani said.

The countries of Latin America receive 45 percent of Brazil’s foreign aid. The rest is distributed among other areas of the developing South, mainly through bilateral channels, but also through the U.N., as in the case of the new local food purchasing fund for the five African countries.

Brazil is now one of the WFP’s 10 largest donor countries.

The difference, Farani said, is that “in our South-South cooperation, we do not impose closed models or solutions. We recognise the experience of the other countries, while sharing our own expertise.”

Brazil has thus established a kind of manual of principles to guide international aid.

“In first place, we are a developing country, which is why our attitude towards the challenge of development is one of humility, because development is still a challenge for Brazil,” Farani said.

“Besides, we have similar realities and challenges” as developing countries, and “we approach things from the idea that it is possible to overcome those challenges, while the attitude of a country from the industrialised North is ‘we are going to help to keep things from getting even worse’,” he said.

Mauricio Santoro, an analyst at the independent Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, mentioned political reasons as well for Brazil’s strategy of becoming a donor country.

Brazil hopes to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and wants greater decision-making power in multilateral bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.

“The political objective is to increase Brazil’s influence in other developing countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa. It’s part of the consolidation of Brazil’s international leadership vis-à-vis nations of the so-called global South,” he said.

But Santoro said there is a difference with respect to traditional donors that use aid as an instrument to establish a presence in new markets.

Brazilian companies, like the state-run oil company Petrobras and private construction and mining firms, are increasingly operating throughout Latin America and in other regions as well.

“The focus is more on politics than on the economy,” he told IPS. “Cooperation is not necessarily stronger with large commercial partners.”

“But it works as a kind of buffer for tension in countries like Bolivia, Paraguay or Mozambique, where there is a heavy presence of Brazilian companies,” he said.

Another difference, Santoro said, is that Brazil’s foreign aid does not come with strings attached, and generally promotes projects that put a priority on developing human resources, by means of training of public employees, for example.

It is the age-old concept of “teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish,” he summed up. (END)

“We don’t want a repeat of welfare-oriented programmes, because they are unsustainable,” said Rony Palacios of the National Network for the Defence of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala, criticising President Otto Pérez Molina’s Zero Hunger plan.

The new right-wing president said the aim of the programme is to beat the chronic malnutrition suffered by one out of two Guatemalan children under five.

Palacios’s criticism echoes that of other activists and experts, who call for support for productive activities.

“We need to strengthen production systems with a programme of credit and technological support targeting small farmers, to boost their crop yields so that they produce a surplus and not only enough to feed their families,” Palacios told IPS.

Pérez Molina, a retired army general, launched the plan on Feb. 16 in the city of San Juan Atitán in the northwestern province of Huehuetenango, which has the country’s highest chronic child malnutrition rate: 91 percent.

The new president announced that the programme was to reach more than one million malnourished children in this country of 14 million people, with a goal of reducing the malnutrition rate to 10 percent by the end of his term in 2016.

The initiative, which takes elements from the original Zero Hunger programme, launched by Brazil, and from a similar strategy implemented in Nicaragua, also includes novel aspects like the “1000-Day Window” which consists of providing support to mothers throughout pregnancy and until the child’s second birthday.

This aspect of the programme includes the promotion of breast-feeding and improved hygiene, and the provision of basic vitamins, minerals and micronutrients, aimed at boosting child health and nutrition from pregnancy, a key stage of development.

The government will also promote business networks for small farmers and the production of tortillas with fortified flour, while continuing the conditional cash transfer programme introduced by the administration of social democratic President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012).

The cash transfer programme consists of granting stipends of around 37 dollars a month to low-income families, conditional on regular school attendance and medical checkups for their children.

The authorities estimate that some 260 million dollars will be needed to finance the plan.

The funds are to come from the “savings” of several government institutions, and the fiscal adjustment plan approved by Congress on Feb. 16.

By means of the new tax package, the government projects that it will bring in 154 million dollars in revenue in 2012, 552 million in 2013 and 579 million in 2014.

Jonathan Menkos with the non-governmental Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEF) told IPS that the fight against hunger “should focus on economic and productive aspects,” given the losses that malnutrition represents for the country.

According to the study “The cost of eradicating hunger in Guatemala”, produced by ICEF and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, “the state spends some 51 cents of a dollar per child to guarantee the development of his or her potential, 10 times less than other Latin American countries.

“This is equivalent to 66 million quetzals (about 8.4 million dollars) in daily losses, when, furthermore, access to food is a human right,” the researcher said.

The report called for increased spending to combat malnutrition this year, greater transparency in the use of such funds, and an efficient follow-up and monitoring system, to get better results.

But any approach to fighting poverty and malnutrition must address the underlying causes, social activists say.

Indigenous and peasant leaders have unsuccessfully pressed for approval of a law on rural development to regulate land use and create agricultural courts and a code that would recognise the ancestral land rights of native communities.

“The offensive against malnutrition should focus on the causes, like the lack of land among campesinos (peasants), or the imposition of an export-oriented model that relegates and discourages production of food for national consumption,” said Palacios.

Andrés José, who lives in San Miguel Acatán, Huehuetenango, another town plagued by high levels of malnutrition, told IPS that the government should take into account the need for diversifying agricultural production and increasing the incorporation of farm technology, and that it should also focus on developing other productive activities, like tourism.

“There are waterfalls and lakes here but they haven’t been exploited yet to generate resources through tourism,” he said.

José also expressed concern over the direction that the Zero Hunger programme could take. “We have to see what kind of approach they take, or if the politicians just want to gain the support of people, as has happened in the past.”

Measures to fight malnutrition are urgently needed in this impoverished Central American country, which has the highest chronic child malnutrition rate in Latin America and one of the highest in the world: just under 50 percent, according to UNICEF.

In addition, more than half of the population lives in poverty, and 17 percent in extreme poverty, according to international statistics.

But the fight against malnutrition in Guatemala did not begin until 2005, when a law was passed to create a National Food Security and Nutritional System, including a national board and secretariat, during the government of right-wing President Oscar Berger (2004-2008).

Colom expanded the fight against hunger, launching “Social Cohesion”, which grouped a number of different programmes: Mi Familia Progresa (My Family Is Making Progress), involving conditional cash transfers; Bolsa Solidaria (food aid); Comedores Solidarios (subsidised cafeterias); Escuelas Abiertas (schools open on the weekends); Becas Solidarias (solidarity scholarships); Mi Comunidad Produce (My Community Produces), including loans and support for small farmers; and Todos Listos Ya (a youth music programme).

Continuing, improving and expanding these programmes was a key pledge of all 10 candidates who ran for president in the September 2011 elections, regardless of where they stood on the political spectrum.

But the activists and experts who spoke to IPS want Zero Hunger and other social programmes to keep in mind the old adage “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

By Fabiana Frayssinet
SALVADOR, Brazil, Dec 8 2011 (IPS)

The man who played a key role in the design of Brazil’s successful food security policies believes it is possible to eradicate hunger in the world, and intends to try by promoting “a simple idea.”

José Graziano da Silva becomes FAO director general on Jan. 1, 2012. Credit: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

In this interview with IPS, former Brazilian minister of food security José Graziano da Silva, who takes over as the new director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Jan. 1, says that what is needed is an increase in political commitment, the mobilisation of even modest resources, and the adoption of absolute rather than relative targets.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs – a series of development and anti-poverty targets adopted by U.N. members in 2000) aim to halve the proportion of hungry people in the world by 2015 – a relative goal that is hard to get people to mobilise behind, says Graziano da Silva.

Citing the experience of Brazil’s Zero Hunger programme, he says everything invested in the fight against hunger is good business.

Graziano da Silva, an agronomist and economist, also says the fight against agribusiness led by social movements like Vía Campesina, the global movement of peasants and small-scale farmers, has a “crippling” effect.

There is no contradiction between small-scale agriculture and agribusiness, he argues, saying “a large part of family agriculture today is involved in the agribusiness food chain.”

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: The number of hungry people in the world is about to climb over one billion. What will be your main approach to eradicating hunger, as the head of FAO?

A: My idea is quite simple. Three elements must be combined. First, a political commitment to eradicating hunger is needed in the poorest countries.

I plan to start a consultation with countries suffering lengthy crises, poor food importers – especially in Africa, and some in Asia – to get them to assume this political commitment and to mobilise resources. Because those countries do have resources.

Brazil’s experience shows that whatever is spent on this is rapidly recovered – any investment in fighting hunger has extraordinary returns.

In the case of anti-hunger spending in Brazil, the consumption cycle immediately brings back revenue in taxes, and the expenditure leads to the generation of jobs and incomes. In FAO, we are going to help these countries draw up feasible plans and help come up with the resources to finance them.

The second question then is to mobilise national resources and involve not only the FAO, but also the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

And third: We have to go beyond the Millennium Development Goals. Because it is very hard to mobilise people politically behind a target like “cutting the proportion in half.” Absolute goals are needed.

I think these three conditions are feasible, and can enable FAO to effectively return to its core goal of eradicating hunger.

Q: Agriculture is facing several dilemmas, including the impact of climate change and land degradation. What approach do you plan to take to these problems?

A: One of the five pillars of my campaign was to promote more sustainable development in terms of production and consumption: a doubly green revolution.

One example is your country, Argentina, where between 90 and 95 percent of grains are planted by direct seeding, without tilling the soil. That reduces erosion to a minimum. One of the big problems in tropical agriculture is the loss of soil and the advance of desertification, due to the intensive use of machinery.

Because of price and access limitations in terms of chemical fertilisers, we have found ways to replace them with natural fertilisers and compost. So there are a number of technologies in developing countries that practice tropical agriculture.

Another pillar of my campaign is increased South-South cooperation.

Q: Large-scale export agriculture and the vast fields of crops (soybeans, oil palm, or industrial tree plantations) that cover ever-growing areas of land compete with food production. What is your take on these challenges?

A: Unfortunately, some social movements have a viewpoint that is detrimental to themselves, and to a certain extent, crippling: the idea that family agriculture and agribusiness are mutually exclusive, are competitors.

Agribusiness is more about marketing. The concept emerged in the United States in the 1950s to lobby Congress for more farm subsidies, and involved sectors that supplied inputs for processing industries and for the entire food chain.

In that sense, it is a unifying concept, and I think that a large part of family agriculture today is involved in the agribusiness food supply chain. There is no way to avoid moving in that direction. That is why the idea of combating that model seems to me like it has a crippling effect.

It would make a lot more sense for family farmers to fight for the development of local markets, where fresh, nutritional food – which cannot be sold on the international market – is in demand.

In Latin America we have beans throughout Central America, and cassava in Brazil, as staple foods, while the Andean countries have quinoa and amaranth.

Not everyone eats meat. There are other kinds of animal and vegetable proteins that have been lost.

That reduction in variety – 80 percent of the global population depends on wheat, corn, rice or soy as the basis of their diet – is a huge threat to the world population, especially because things are moving in the direction of a diet made up of cereals, fats and oilseeds.

And obesity is a serious problem because it affects more than one billion people worldwide. Expanding the food base with diversified production in family agriculture that supplies local markets seems to me a positive route that does not clash with agribusiness.

Q: The expansion of food crops for the production of agrofuels has contributed to driving up prices. Critics also say that as monoculture crops, they contribute to environmental imbalance, like sugar cane in Brazil, palm oil in several Latin American and Asian countries, or corn in the United States. What is your position on this?

A: I’m going to use the rhetoric of (former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) in his 2008 speech in a FAO meeting. He said biofuels is a generic term; lots of things fit under that umbrella. And as in the case of cholesterol, you have to separate the good from the bad.

There is one biofuel that affects food prices: corn, because it is the basic ingredient in many food supply chains. FAO studies show that it has an impact because it affects prices of other products, including soy, since the markets are interconnected.

There is also an impact on oilseeds, like rapeseed in Germany, because of competition for water and with other natural resources. In Malaysia there are fears that expansion of oil palm plantations will destroy natural biodiversity.

But biofuels don’t generally have an impact on prices. That has been proven in the case of sugar cane in Brazil. First of all, because it is not on such a huge scale – just three percent of the land is used for ethanol produced from sugar cane. And second, because the sugar cane circuit in Brazil does not compete with the agri-food sector. It has its own channels.

Not everyone has the same availability of land and water to produce biofuels. In FAO we carried out a country-by-country study in Latin America, which is how it must be done, and found that there are four countries that could expand biofuel production without affecting food security: Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Colombia.

These countries have an adjustment variable which is the great modern secret, if you will: the transition from extensive to intensive livestock systems, which frees up enormous amounts of land and water and significantly curbs pressure on forests and jungles from the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

It is a radical paradigm shift. These are countries that have integrated livestock and agricultural production like in Europe, the United States, or parts of the pampas (in Argentina).

Q: Another new issue is land grabbing by companies and even governments of other countries in Africa and other regions of the developing world. What are your views on this phenomenon?

A: We just completed a study in 17 countries in Latin America according to which, in terms of volume, the impact is significant in Argentina and Brazil. Other countries feel the problem in border areas, but as a consequence of population movements that happened a much longer time ago. That includes Paraguay and Uruguay, which are affected by Brazil’s expansion in soy agribusiness.

But we didn’t come across evidence in other countries. We did find, however, great concern on the part of countries and governments, in terms of the need for legislation that allows them to keep order in their territories. For example, in southern Chile we see companies that purchase large tracts of land to preserve woodlands or block the construction of hydropower dams or roads.

Countries have to update their land laws, many of which were copied from the United States of the 18th century, when legal conceptions were aimed at keeping the people of one country from populating the border regions of another. But that conception is no longer in line with the mobility of capital we see today.

Countries ask FAO for help in designing other mechanisms to ensure control over their territories, such as a database. The great majority of nations in this region don’t even have information about who is buying land.

Q: What was the purpose of expanding and reforming the Committee on World Food Security?

A: The aim was to attract sectors that until now were civil society observers, to allow them to express themselves in the fight against hunger in the same conditions as countries, and the same goes for the private sector – the two components that are joining the Committee as a result of the reform. All of these sectors must be included in the struggle, which has to be global.

This has just started, but now there is a deadline for getting to know each other and finding the path to take. The reform was tardy, and there is tremendous pressure to respond immediately with more concrete actions.

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