Climate Crisis Makes More People Go Hungry

Deborah Lopes, for NINJA Collaborative Coverage at COP26

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, starts this Sunday, October 31st. The event is one of the most important for planet Earth, when it comes to future prospects for humanity, as, after all, leaders from several countries aim to find possible and immediate solutions to curb the advance of climate change and minimize the impacts of global warming. The climate crisis is intrinsically related to social issues, as it exacerbates social inequality.

In different parts of the globe, extreme climate events multiply, grow in intensity, and are much more impacting when socioeconomic asymmetries, lack of adaptive capacity and also the high degree of vulnerability to which the affected community is exposed are taken into consideration.

One of the consequences of that process is the increase of hunger. One climate change impacts food production, as well as small products. According to an article published in Clima Info, the productivity of crops may fall up to 10% until 2050, especially in the regions of the Global South, enhancing the inequality around the globe even more.

The agriculture issue is a sensitive one, especially when we analyze the problem of hunger. There is a tension between food production and its fair distribution, motivated by the capitalist mode of production that intensifies inequalities.

As an example, the Brazilian agricultural model undermines ecosystems, which causes damage to the local population and to small producers of family farming. This theme also appears in the IPCC report as being one of the main factors of climate changes and one of the main affected areas.

This contradiction can be explained by the agriculture productive model, which directly impacts the climate, while also suffering from climatic shocks, causing damage to the native population, due to territorial dispute; to small producers, it impacts on family farming; and also affecting the local communities as a whole thus, intensifying food insecurity.

Food Insecurity

According to the Report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the largest concentration of people suffering from food insecurity is in the Global South, more specifically in Asia, with 418 million, and Africa, with 282 million. Latin America and the Caribbean have a smaller but alarming proportion of 60 million people. It is a certainty that the new coronavirus pandemic enhanced the number of people suffering from malnourishment. However, data of international and governmental organisms points out that climate changes are still a key factor in the world’s food situation.
In line with the Report, the Institute of Agricultural Economics (IAE) confirmed the trend indicated by the study that one of the reasons for the increase in food insecurity and the return of hunger in certain areas of the globe is caused, in addition to social and economic inequalities, by extreme climate variations.

A study more focused on the Brazilian case was the National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic, which revealed that 116.8 million people suffered with food insecurity in 2020, 43.4 million of which did not have access to basic food, and 19 million were suffering from hunger.

Thinking about protecting the Environment is also a way of thinking in ways of mitigating hunger and food insecurity, as they are inseparable subjects. The consequences that a flooding, drought, hurricane may cause to the lives of local people go beyond environmental damage. It also involves social and economic damage. Seeking to value native people, small producers and family farming is also a way to protect the Environment. The inclusion of those actors in the making of public policies and guidelines is something indispensable for governmental leaders.

The @MidiaNinja and @CasaNinjaAmazonia have a special coverage of COP26. Follow the #ninjanacop tag on the networks!

Tradução: Raphaela Ikeuchi