BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Dr Manuel Otero, Tuesday said that the rise in the price of food commodities will be a hard blow for countries where malnutrition is prevalent, such as Haiti, Grenada, St Lucia, as well as Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

“Rising energy prices are also having a multiplier effect on the costs of inputs, products and services throughout agrifood chains. Meanwhile, Russia and Belarus, traditional leading suppliers of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium-based fertilizers, have now been hit by trade sanctions,” he wrote in an opinion article.

The IICA director general said that the world is in a state of unrest amidst a headlong collision of monumental crises, with no end in sight.

“There has been a convergence of the worst factors possible: a pandemic, the disintegration of logistics chains, extreme droughts, overall climate vulnerability and a war between two leading players in agrifood and energy production and trade, thereby disrupting markets and destroying production infrastructure.”

He said that this situation may potentially cause other “black swans” of various types and levels of disruptiveness to go undetected and is creating uncertainty in the agri-food systems of the Americas, a region that is the world’s major net food exporter, the cornerstone of global environmental sustainability and biodiversity, as well as a leading energy and mineral supplier at the global level.

“The mounting tensions are destabilising the fragile balance of the planet’s food, nutritional and environmental security, undermining its foundation.  Meanwhile, countries’ ongoing concern about another sensitive equation is also intensifying, how to supply their people with food at affordable prices, while also ensuring farmers a minimal level of profitability.”

Otero said Latin America and the Caribbean is the major net food-exporting region of the world, noting that if one includes North America, almost one-third of the food produced and consumed on the planet originates in the Americas.

“However, this birds’ eye view fails to reveal the contrasting realities of a heterogeneous region in which large exporters, primarily the MERCOSUR countries, co-exist with net food importers. The region has a relatively low value-added export basket and a low level of intra-regional trade (14 per cent), in comparison to trade within North America (46 per cent) and the European Union (65 per cent).”

Otero said socially, the pandemic has set the region back almost two decades. Poverty and extreme poverty have mushroomed, along with food insecurity, whereas projections of slow economic expansion are cause for concern, warning of the possibility of facing another lost decade in terms of development.

“The war is creating further pressure and is hitting specific exports from countries such as Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay, which have a significant amount of trade with the Russian market in items such as banana, beef and dairy products.

“The rise in the price of food commodities will be a hard blow for countries where malnutrition is prevalent, such as Haiti, the countries in Central America’s Northern Triangle, as well as Grenada, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and St Lucia.”

Otero said that the concurrence of these crises will compel the region, as a mainstay of the planet’s food and nutritional security and a pillar of environmental sustainability and diversity, to focus efforts on vulnerable populations and to facilitate ongoing intraregional and international trade, as a matter of urgency, fostering a true partnership that promotes agricultural trade in Latin America and the Caribbean.

He said as such, countries will need to join forces and strengthen sectoral policy coordination bodies, prioritising collective action for the benefit of all.

“At the same time, to strategically address short- and medium-term needs, it is imperative that there be a major coordinated effort between science, technology and innovation, coupled with the corresponding public policy and investment framework while setting ambitious and structured goals.

“Namely, our agrifood systems must make the most efficient use of natural resources, creating decent and socially inclusive employment and facilitating diets that are healthy and sustainable, from an environmental perspective.”

Otero said that the war has merely reaffirmed the fact that food security is one of the planet’s chief concerns and that the American region should reinforce its relevance and leading role as the guarantor of a healthy and abundant global food supply.