Approximately one in two people in the English-speaking Caribbean is struggling to put a nutritious breakfast, lunch and dinner on their table in the way they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent World Food Programme (WFP) survey.
This has prompted some regional officials to call for a more holistic approach to food security, including greater reliance on locally-grown food, and tackling praedial larceny and the high costs associated with farming, transportation, logistics, storage and handling.
The WFP estimates that around 3.7 million people (about 52 per cent of the population) in the English-speaking Caribbean face some degree of food insecurity. This number has decreased by 400 000 since August 2022 but remains well above pre-COVID levels.
Of that, about 9 per cent are estimated to be severely food insecure and the rest moderately insecure.
The data is contained in the Caribbean Food Security and Livelihood Survey: Natural Hazards and the Cost of Living Crisis, the most recent of six rounds of surveys since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The survey received responses from 7 870 people across 22 countries and territories, including just over 1 100 respondents from Barbados.
Regis Chapman, Representative and Country Director for the WFP Multi-Country Office for the English and Dutch-Speaking Caribbean, presented some of the findings from the April 2023 survey during the Central Bank of Barbados’ July Caribbean Economic Forum, which was held on the topic Addressing Food Security in the Caribbean.
The survey revealed that three-quarters of the respondents were using their savings to meet immediate food needs. Ten per cent of those said they could no longer do so, while 58 per cent said they had reduced their expenditure on health and education so they could buy food.
The report noted that nearly a third of respondents had resorted to selling productive assets or transport to meet immediate food needs.
“The concern that we have is, if that affordability issue isn’t resolved soon some of these decisions that households are making will have much longer repercussions,” said Chapman.
The report also indicated that 91 per cent of households had to change how they shop. It said that respondents who did were mainly buying cheaper or less preferred foods (69 per cent) and purchasing smaller quantities than usual (63 per cent).
“The Caribbean has the highest cost of a healthy diet than anywhere else in the world,” said Chapman.
“We are seeing this increase and it is affecting countries where you see higher levels of food insecurity . . . I think the other aspect around this is inflation,” he added while explaining that a reduction in inflation in small island development states was usually slow.
Chapman said that while the food insecurity levels in 2020 were “severely alarming”, driven largely by COVID-19 mitigation measures such as limited inability to shop due to restrictions, that was no longer the case.
“Now it is an issue of affordability, and what we see in these last two rounds [of surveys] is the increasing number of people who are citing the lack of financial means as a key driver to their food insecurity,” he reported.
“We have seen over the last two rounds that around 97 per cent of people have flagged that food prices have increased over the period just before the survey. This is not a surprise . . . . Prices have been going up and people have been feeling that.”
The WFP official also noted that respondents involved in agriculture and fishing continued to report high input costs.
He said there was a need for a change in diet and “getting back to our roots”, and suggested it was time the region “look at our root crops and tubers and go into the breadfruit and some of those more traditional crops that we eat in the Caribbean”.
“We also need to . . . shift away from perhaps some of the wheat-based products and processed products to locally-produced foods and create that value in those commodities, whether it is as is off the tree, or processed,” he added.
Joseph Cox, Assistant Secretary-General for the Directorate of Economic Integration, Innovation and Development at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, also highlighted the issue of higher food prices.
“The fact of life is that given the inflationary impulses that have been impacting the region and the people, you will find that we will have not just food security challenges but we will have nutritional security challenges,” he cautioned.
Cox said financial institutions had to be less risk-averse when it came to investing in the agriculture sector, even as he acknowledged that farmers usually did not have adequate collateral to obtain loans.
He also pointed to the need for lower overhead costs, including electricity, and for measures to be implemented to avert “dumping” of products in the region.
“I wish it were just as simple as to say let us encourage everybody to buy local,” said Cox.
The panellists agreed that there was a need for more targeted social intervention policies to help those who were more vulnerable.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb ]]>
