JULIO A BERDEGUÉ
HUNGER IN Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 14 million people in 2020. With this, the region lost all it had achieved in 20 years of fighting this scourge.
At the same time, the covid19 pandemic accelerated the overweight and obesity crisis. Household income fell and prices increased, especially for perishable foods that are more sensitive to disruptions in supply and distribution chains. The combination of lower incomes and higher food prices led millions to transition to cheaper diets of lower nutritional quality. We already see surveys that anticipate high obesity figures, including among girls, boys and adolescents.
There are 113 million people in Latin American and the Caribbean who cannot afford what for them is the luxury of a healthy diet and are condemned to eat poorly and, therefore, to get sick and live less full lives. Incomprehensibly, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region of the planet where it is most expensive to consume a healthy diet.
The pandemic has put around 451 million jobs at risk across the global food system. In the region, this contributed to the sharp increase in poverty: 22 million people fell into poverty in our region in a single year. This problem is particularly harsh in rural areas where 45 per cent of the population is poor.
The economic and social recovery is very uneven. Developed countries will manage to exceed their per capita gross domestic product (GDP) levels in 2021, but at least 18 countries in the region will have to wait three or more years to return to the level they were at in 2019.
The pandemic has been a humanitarian catastrophe, with waves of social and economic repercussions, which has made us relegate to the background the mother of all humanity's battles: climate change.
The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has tolled as a loud bell that calls us to urgently refocus. With regard to agri-food systems, it reminds us that 23 per cent of the total net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are related to agriculture, livestock, forestry and land-use change.
As if that were not enough, a scientific and technological revolution is underway that is generating new realities at astonishing speed. Just one example: in 2020, private investments in alternative protein companies in the world totalled $3.1 billion, almost five times more than the budget of Embrapa, the main agricultural research centre in the region.
In this context, there are those who wonder if the transformation of agri-food systems is necessary.
According to the dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Academy, the verb transform means 'to make someone or something change shape,' and also 'to make someone change their habits.'
Should agri-food systems change their shape? Should the actors of these agri-food systems (which, incidentally, includes all of us as consumers) change their customs?
It is true that among the many