Food systems and COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: how to increase resilience. (Bulletin 2.)

The proposal for disaster risk management points to the importance of understanding, monitoring and anticipating the impacts of crises on agriculture for which an action protocol is presented. Timely and accurate monitoring enables evidence-based programmatic decisions to be made and action to be taken in advance to avoid impacts on food and nutrition security. This approach must give priority to the most vulnerable populations and ensure the continuity of the critical food supply chain. However, the response also offers a significant opportunity to build a more resilient and sustainable future. Latin American and Caribbean countries are in the early stages of the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, which influences the focus of implemented policies and initiatives. The main implemented policies and initiatives focus on food availability and access, although the way in which these are applied may vary at the subregional level. While in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica these are geared towards self-production, in South America they focus on the delivery of food kits to the most vulnerable people and schoolchildren. The other package of measures aims at the continuity of food production processes, focusing on maintaining a normal transit of food and inputs. While a rapid impact assessment is essential for proper resource management, we understand that this is not a measure reported by all countries, as urgency leads governments to act quickly on needs. In the medium term, it will be necessary to contemplate in the public, private and academic spheres how to adapt to a very different future reality, focusing on the resilience of food systems. In macroeconomic terms, GDP growth for the region in 2020 will slow considerably, mainly due to falling commodity prices, disruptions in value chains and lower demand for tourism services. In addition to the fall in international trade, it is estimated that the value of the region's exports will fall by around 15 percent, mainly due to a reduction in prices (lower world demand). In a scenario of lower GDP growth and, therefore, lower household incomes, the possibility of people in the region to have access to sufficient resources to meet their basic needs, such as health or food, diminishes. If we add to this the fact that in some countries of the region domestic price warnings have been raised, households will have to deal with a scenario of low income and high food prices, a situation of high risk for the food and nutrition security of their inhabitants. Financial support must be sought in order to, firstly, save lives and, secondly, rebuild with a focus on the resilience of food systems to new threats.