While small populations and farming initiatives of various kinds are commonplace in the Caribbean, there is still reason to believe that COVID-19 can breach the region’s less-than-impregnable food security defences if the pandemic persists for much longer.
In April this year, two regional organisations, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) publicly expressed concern over what they see as “challenges to regional food security and accessing safe and nutritious food during, and beyond, the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The contention of the two regional organisations is that “the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to create a food- security gap that could “undermine the gains made in recent years in the prevention and control of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as well as the maintenance of good health among people living with NCDs.” It is an argument that resonates with nutritionists in many parts of the region.
The position of the HCC and the OECS is that some of the control measures that have arisen out of the pandemic “are creating environments conducive to significant dietary shifts away from fresh produce towards non-perishable, energy-dense, nutrient-poor, processed and ultra-processed foods high in fats, salt, and sugars.”
But that is not the region’s only food security headache. Apart from the fact that it ‘wears’ an estimated annual US$5 billion food import bill on its ‘sleeve’ like a proverbial ‘badge of shame,’ the two aforementioned regional organisations report that here in the region the advent of COVID-19 has meant that “fast-food chains and quick-service restaurants… are adapting rapidly in order to meet growing demands for non-perishables.” They say that “while acknowledging the potential contribution and value of the private sector (the fast-food outlets), we must proceed with caution in light of increasing concerns that food and beverage industry giants may exploit current vulnerabilities to promote non-perishable, energy-dense, nutrient-poor, processed and ultra-processed foods high in fats, salt, and sugars.”
This is a remark that will doubtless brings frowns to the faces of the many fast-food outlets in the region, the truth or otherwise of it notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, the HCC and the OECS say that they are also concerned over “the loss of nutritious meals by tens of thousands of children who benefit from national school meals programmes,” a circumstance which it terms as a “casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Caribbean,” described as “a region already on a dangerous trajectory towards crisis levels of overweight and obesity.” Here again, they argue that the pandemic “jeopardizes recent modest successes in this area (reducing overweight and obesity problems)” and alludes to the potential of this circumstance “to give rise to post-pandemic surges in overweight and obesity among children and in the population at large.”
Perhaps the more disturbing circumstance arises out of the view expressed by the two regional organisations that even when (if?) COVID-19 exhausts itself, it will leave its mark in terms of dependency on imported foods in circumstances where some countries in the region are already “importing 90-95% of what they consume, a situation which they say, leaves the Caribbean “particularly vulnerable.”
There is, the HCC and the OECS say, “an urgent short-term and long-term imperative to develop and strengthen healthy, resilient, and sustainable regional food systems through increased domestic production and trade.” It calls for “consumption of healthy diets consisting of domestically sourced fruits and vegetables and some animal products, such as fish and chicken,” foods which it says, are “critical for immune strength.” While they concede that across the region “small scale producers are currently trying to fill these gaps,” they point out that as regional food security challenges grow so too will the demand for such initiatives grow. “As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, global food supply chains which are currently stable may begin to see disruptions,” the two organisations say.
