The Di­rec­tor of the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA), Dr Manuel Otero, is urg­ing re­gion­al gov­ern­ments to be­gin work­ing on food se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures de­spite the cur­rent coro­n­avirus cri­sis, as the well-be­ing of their pop­u­la­tions are at stake.

Dr Otero ob­serves that many of the coun­tries in the re­gion are net im­porters of food, which has se­ri­ous con­se­quences for their abil­i­ty to get through the cur­rent cri­sis.

He al­so points to the harsh im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on economies that are not high­ly di­ver­si­fied.

The fol­low­ing is an of­fi­cial state­ment re­leased by IICA, shar­ing Dr Otero’s analy­sis and rec­om­men­da­tions on the cur­rent COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion.

LESSONS AND CHAL­LENGES: CO­OP­ER­A­TION IN THE ERA OF CORO­N­AVIRUS

by Dr Manuel Otero
Di­rec­tor of the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA)

We are wit­ness­ing the spread of a new pan­dem­ic in the 21st cen­tu­ry. Now less than four months since it first erupt­ed, this emer­gency is rock­ing the world, and we are not yet able to fore­see what life will be like in a few months, when this dra­mat­ic event is fi­nal­ly over.

Amidst the con­fu­sion, fear and dis­ori­en­ta­tion, we can draw some con­clu­sions and iden­ti­fy pre­lim­i­nary lessons. The first is ob­vi­ous. This sit­u­a­tion is hav­ing a greater im­pact on economies that are ex­ces­sive­ly de­pen­dent on one sec­tor, such as tourism, pe­tro­le­um or agri­cul­tur­al raw ma­te­ri­als. The struc­tur­al, long-term an­ti­dote to this is di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The slow­ing down of trade is al­so en­dan­ger­ing peo­ple’s abil­i­ty to ful­ly ex­er­cise their right to food, es­pe­cial­ly in coun­tries with an ex­treme­ly high agri­cul­tur­al trade deficit.  In some cas­es, it seems that there may be in­suf­fi­cient labour to trans­port goods, es­pe­cial­ly over long dis­tances, al­though, this is not af­fect­ing the food sup­ply at the mo­ment.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 coun­tries in the hemi­sphere are net im­porters of food. Each year, the Caribbean re­gion alone draws a cheque for 6 bil­lion dol­lars to feed 44.5 mil­lion peo­ple. The sit­u­a­tion calls for food se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies and greater ef­forts to in­crease self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

We must again re­assess the role of fam­i­ly farm­ers, who, iron­i­cal­ly, al­though piv­otal in en­sur­ing food self-suf­fi­cien­cy, are the ad­just­ment vari­able in times of eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty. These farm­ers sup­ply close to 60% of the food de­mand in the hemi­sphere. This sit­u­a­tion re­quires us to fo­cus on poli­cies that ben­e­fit these pro­duc­ers, em­pha­siz­ing ar­eas such as as­so­cia­tiv­i­ty, ex­ten­sion ser­vices, ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy and agri­cul­tur­al in­sur­ance.

The new gen­er­a­tion of pests and dis­eases af­fect­ing men and women, crops and an­i­mals—such as Fusar­i­um on ba­nanas, lo­custs and African Swine Fever—cre­ate the need for so­phis­ti­cat­ed sur­veil­lance and agri­cul­tur­al quar­an­tine ser­vices, as a means of re­in­forc­ing the im­por­tance of health in­tel­li­gence and prospec­tive mon­i­tor­ing.

We will have to strength­en na­tion­al and re­gion­al in­no­va­tion and de­vel­op­ment sys­tems be­fore the de­vel­oped coun­tries leave us be­hind com­plete­ly. Our coun­tries must in­crease the pro­duc­tion of ma­jor crops, while boost­ing their re­sis­tance to drought, pests and dis­eases; and we must be in­creas­ing­ly rig­or­ous about con­trol­ling the in­dis­crim­i­nate use of cer­tain agro­chem­i­cals.

The well-be­ing and food se­cu­ri­ty of our peo­ple are at stake, which means main­tain­ing the world or­der, as we know it. This sit­u­a­tion makes the de­liv­ery of ef­fec­tive and first-class tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion an im­per­a­tive.