MIAMI (AP) – Rising inflation in Latin America and the Caribbean countries has increased the risk of food insecurity in the region, which faces rising extreme poverty and famine despite one of the world’s largest agricultural surpluses, three United Nations agencies said on Tuesday.
In a joint report, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) said inflation, which affects the poorest sectors, is 1.4 percent Points higher than that affecting the richest sectors.
“This behavior of food inflation exacerbates the risk of problems in access to healthy eating, food insecurity and hunger because low-income households are more affected,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, better known as ECLAC.
The report was released at a press conference at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile and broadcast virtually via social media. It was announced at a time when the region is facing high inflation and economic difficulties, mainly due to the impact of the war in Ukraine and tightening access to credit due to high interest rates.
After a brief post-pandemic rebound in 2021 and part of 2022, growth forecasts have been revised downwards. Globally, the economy is expected to grow 3.1% in 2022, 1.3 percentage points lower than the pre-war forecast, while Latin America and the Caribbean will grow 3.2% this year, but activity will slow to 1.4% in 2023, according to the latest ECLAC projections.
According to the report, Latin America is one of the regions with the highest annual agricultural surplus in the world, surpassed only by Oceania: $127 trillion, or $200 per capita. However, as importers of wheat, corn and vegetable oils, a large number of countries are exposed to production and marketing problems as well as price increases as a result of the war in Ukraine.
In September 2022, the average annual increase in the consumer price index was 11.7%, compared with a 7.1% increase in overall inflation, according to the joint report, entitled “Towards Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the World”. Caribbean in response to the world food crisis.
ECLAC estimates that the incidence of extreme poverty would increase by 0.2% and add 1.8 million people in 2022, for a total of 81.8 million people in the region. The vast majority of them, 55.7 million, live in urban areas and the rest in rural areas.
Although malnutrition has increased since 2014, the increase between 2019 and 2021 was larger, at 1.9 percentage points, reaching 8.6% of the population. According to the report, the number of hungry rose by 13.2 million to 56.5 million people.