As experts warn of a looming global food shortage, on top of what already exists, we’re joined by two guests to look at what led to the crisis and what to do about it. In Heidelberg, Germany, Sofía Monsalve Suárez is secretary general of FIAN International, a human rights organization working for the right to food and nutrition. In Montpellier, France, Rachel Bezner Kerr is the coordinating lead author for the chapter on climate change impacts and adaptation of food systems for the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, their report titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” that was published in February, also professor of global development at Cornell University.
First of all, I want to say that this is not a food shortage crisis — not yet, not now. It may turn to it in a couple of months or next year, but not now. So, the problem is access to food, that people don’t have money to pay for food, that people are jobless. And as you know, we live in marketing economies, so we have to have money to have access to food.
So, this is not new. This is probably the fourth crisis in 50 years. So, these very fragile industrial systems, food systems that we have in place, are failing. They are extremely fragile to the climate crisis, to the economic shocks, to conflict. And this is the problem. So, therefore, this crisis has been long in the make.
It is due to the dismantling of public and communal institutions taking care of providing food; skipping support to peasant farming; to decentralized systems. So we put all our eggs into this corporate food system, where countries have to rely on long food supply chains, you know, on global trade. And when we see disruptions — COVID was one example —
— source democracynow.org | Jun 23, 2022