Why in News?
FAO in their document on the State of the Agri-food Business, recommended Countries to prepare for future “shocks” to their agricultural and food systems from droughts, floods or diseases following the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Agri-food systems include production, food supply chains, transport networks and consumption.
Key points:
- As per FAO, the COVID-19 pandemic has left the fragilities of national agri-food systems widely exposed, there is an unwelcome increase in food insecurity and malnutrition.
- As per the report, 3 billion people around the world already cannot afford a healthy diet to protect themselves against malnutrition
- An additional one billion people are at risk as they would not be able to afford a healthy diet if a shock were to reduce their incomes by one-third
- In a report in July, the FAO said that between 720 million and 811 million people faced hunger in 2020 — some 161 million more than in 2019, largely due to the pandemic.
Way Forward:
- Risk management strategies for shocks such as droughts, floods and pests — including multi-risk assessments, timely forecasts, early warning systems and early action plans — are key to help all agri-food systems, to prevent and anticipate major disruptions.
- Moreover, FAO has established “resilience” indicators to help countries identify vulnerabilities in their food systems. The indicators measure the robustness of a country’s primary production, the extent of food availability, and the degree of people’s access to adequate food.
Relevance: GS- 2: Issues relating to poverty and Hunger, Important International Institutions; GS- 3: Issues of Food Security, Environmental degradation, Disaster
Key phrases: FAO, State of the Agri-food Business, Covid19 Pandemic, Agri-food Systems, food insecurity, mal-nutrition, vulnerabilities in food system, Risk management strategies Robustness in primary production
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