Two Pandemics

The Indian Express     2nd September 2020     Save    

Context: By working together, learning and contributing together, we can overcome both pandemics viz. COVID-19 and Food Insecurity.

Trends in Global Hunger

  • Particular vulnerability of Southern Asia:
    • The number of chronically-underfed people projected to rise by almost a third to 330 million by 2030
    • More than half the children from the poorest fifth of society are stunted in Southern Asia.
  • Pacific island states have the world’s highest child wasting rates, and East Asia has the world’s highest absolute costs for a healthy diet.
  • Asia and the Pacific are regions where obesity and being overweight, among children and adults, is growing faster than anywhere else.
  • Impact of COVID: Beyond its health toll, is crushing livelihoods, and hunger,
    • Impacting the pledge to eradicate by the end of this decade — the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.

Way Forward

  • Increase resilience across food systems by identifying new marketing channels
    • Increase efficiency to reduce losses
    • Improve the quality of products available and storage facilities.
    • For, E.g. Comprehensive COVID-19 response and recovery programme of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) aimed at ensuring access to nutritious food by mobilising all forms of resources.
  • Ensure inclusive access to finance to strengthen and expand rural food supply chains.
  • Enable farmers to be more dynamic, entrepreneurial and competitive through continual innovation.
    • From Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific to China, India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore innovators are providing new technologies and science. For E.g.
      • Deploying drones to monitor flood and pest risks,
      • Smartphone apps that can identify plant diseases,
      • Advanced genetics that builds on crop and livestock breeding,
      • Precision agriculture and aquaculture systems that conserve natural resources such as water and indoor farming.
      • Consumer tools for nutrition monitoring and smart purchasing.
    • All stakeholders need to be working in unison to overcome pandemics and transform the agri-food system for E.g.
      • Hand-in-Hand initiative of FAO to tackle collective challenges.
      • FAO’s Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific will provide a perfect opportunity to forge ways to expedite action and leverage resources.

Conclusion: Tackling food security and pandemic will require new ideas and a more robust political will.

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