UN report: 4 million Argentines facing serious food insecurity issue
Last edited Mon Sep 24, 2018, 01:03 PM - Edit history (1)
Hilal Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, reported after a 10-day fact-finding mission that the economic crisis in Argentina has greatly impacted the access to food for millions of people.
The current economic and financial crisis in Argentina is eroding purchasing power and increasing food prices according to the report, which noted that 4 million Argentines (9%) now face food insecurity.
Trade and financial deregulation policies enacted by President Mauricio Macri were followed by a debt crisis, forcing Argentina to seek a $50 billion IMF bailout on June 8.
A severe recession began after the 2017 debt bubble imploded in April, and by June GDP was down 6.7% and unemployment at 9.6% - the highest in 12 years. Real wages, according to official data, have fallen 15% since Macri took office three years ago.
Austerity measures agreed to with the IMF as part of the bailout are, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz warns, likely to exacerbate the crisis.
Granary of the world
Argentina is the world's third-largest net agricultural exporter, and its 44 million people were until this year the highest paid and best fed in Latin America.
Elver points out however that "since the end of last year and amid the economic crisis, poverty rates have begun to increase at an alarming level - affecting children in particular."
The rapporteur noted "an increasing number of people going to soup kitchens or skipping meals, and children being forced to rely entirely on school lunch programs."
"My concerns are with not only the most vulnerable but also with Argentina’s large middle class," Elver said. She called on Macri to protect people's right to food, education, health, and housing.
From zero hunger to zero for hunger
The situation is in stark contrast to the one Macri inherited in late 2015.
Elver noted that during the center-left Néstor Kirchner administration "Argentina was the top performer in the region in reducing poverty between 2004 and 2008."
The FAO declared that by 2015, the last year of Cristina Kirchner's administration, "zero hunger was at hand" - an assessment echoed by prominent anti-hunger advocate Juan Carr.
"Malnutrition-related deaths had fallen from 24 daily to three," Carr noted. "But demand at food banks is now increasing and we're seeing underweight children again."
Meanwhile many family farmers - 80% of the nation's farms and source of half its fruits and vegetables - are being forced out of business by soaring costs.
Elver was critical of Macri's decision to dismantle government support for family farms.
"This seems to be targeted to further promote export-oriented agroindustry, mainly soy and maize, and in the middle of a severe economic crisis will impact Argentina’s right to food."
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagina12.com.ar%2F143753-la-onu-advierte-sobre-el-hambre-en-la-argentina&edit-text=
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Hilal Elver, reporting from Buenos Aires.
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"Invest in Argentina," he's telling them as we speak. "This may look exactly like the 1981 and 2001 collapses - but don't believe your eyes!"
Well, hell. All he'd have to do is spray-tan himself, put on 100 lbs, finish each phrase with a loud "believe me!" - and he could double for Trump.
By the way, thank you for this post, Judi: https://www.democraticunderground.com/110862985
Macri's efforts to bankrupt family farms - which supply most of the nation's produce and dairy - are definitely an important part of this same story.
Dr. Elver is certainly lucky she can speak her mind freely about what she saw, because anti-hunger activists in Argentina such as Juan Carr, who've tried to alert their middle-class countrymen (who are feeling the pinch themselves, judging from plummeting auto and big-ticket item sales), are routinely subjected to a barrage of insults, trolling and threats.
Photo from Thursday's verdurazo (produce giveaway) in Buenos Aires.
Verdurazos and frutazos have become an enduring image of the Macri years, a poignant form of protest which serves a dual role as a benefit to the community.
Produce is either given away or sold for 10 pesos (25 U.S. cents) a kilo - around one seventh the retail price.
