FAO seeks to reduce food waste and focused on the hub markets of Buenos Aires
15 Feb 2022
The United Nations ordered a monitoring in 6 large places of sale of fruits and vegetables. They seek to improve the link with producers and ask for gender inclusion.
A recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on the food circuit in Greater Buenos Aires warned about some points in the fruit and vegetable distribution chain. The Central Market of Buenos Aires (MCBA) was the most important site of those observed by the specialists. What did they conclude? They understand that work must be done towards “modernization, the circular economy and gender inclusion”. Last year, FAO had warned that Argentina had been the country in which food insecurity grew the most in the region.
“The scarce representation of women in decision-making or representation of the market communities is notable, with the exception of the MCBA. In addition, 100% of the markets need investment for improvements and expansions, to integrate the largest number of cooperative members or stalls in the markets or mobile fairs”, they pointed out from FAO after presenting the consultancy that was carried out by local specialists at the request of the important international organization.
João Intini, FAO Food Systems policy officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, argued that “we must understand markets as living and active elements of supply, the economy, gastronomy, and people’s food and understand that these make up a essential framework in the territories where they are inserted”.
“The scarce representation of women in decision-making or representation of the market communities is notable, with the exception of the MCBA. In addition, 100% of the markets need investment for improvements and expansions, to integrate the largest number of cooperative members or stalls in the markets or mobile fairs”, they pointed out from FAO after presenting the consultancy that was carried out by local specialists at the request of the important international organization.
João Intini, FAO Food Systems policy officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, argued that “we must understand markets as living and active elements of supply, the economy, gastronomy, and people’s food and understand that these make up a essential framework in the territories where they are inserted”.
And they pointed out that now “there is a work agenda to monitor the economic situation, the supply and demand of products, and support the modernization of wholesale markets.”
The consultancy work was carried out by Ana Julia Gómez and Ariel Monzón, and at the same time was framed in the program “public-private strategies for the modernization of actors of the traditional channel responsible for the commercialization and distribution of food” developed together with the Ministry of Agrarian Development of Buenos Aires and the National Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MAGyP).
They seek a “side by side” between markets and producers
Javier Cernadas, the chief of staff of the undersecretary of Agrarian Development and Agrifood Quality of the province of Buenos Aires, focused on the youngest and closest markets. “It is important that they operationalize a program to reduce losses and waste and circular economy, we have been working for a long time in the Table of Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets that we created from Buenos Aires, also inviting the national government to participate together with Senasa, INTA and other municipalities ”.
“It is important to raise awareness in the recovery in the field, but we want to channel it through the markets, seeking that these be the leading body,” said Néstor Lombardi, president of the Argentine Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Activity (CAAF). “We have to work side by side between markets and producers to find an alternative outlet and raise awareness that the merchandise that remains in the field can reach the places where it is needed,” he added.
In some products, there were cases in which producers were able to harvest, but not sell their production. This was the case of the onion: a part was abandoned in the fields, rotting in the sun. The reason? Complications in bilateral trade with Brazil.
That is why from the MCBA they indicated that they want to achieve the inclusion of more ships in the “Program for the Reduction of Losses and Waste and Recovery of Waste” and update the internal regulations of the Market. “We are rethinking our procedures,” said Marisol Troya, Manager of Quality and Transparency of the MCBA.
The warning that the FAO had made about Argentina
At the end of November of last year, a presentation by the agency had given news that was difficult to digest here: a report stated that our country had been the place where food insecurity had increased the most, compared to others in the region.
“In most Mesoamerican countries, more than 40% of the population suffers from moderate or severe food insecurity. In Guatemala, the figure is 49.7%, in El Salvador 47.1% and in Honduras 45.6%. As for South America, this affects 47.8% of the population in Peru, 35.8% in Argentina and 32.7% in Ecuador”, they contextualized.
The Argentine path to those 35.8% in “moderate or severe food insecurity” begins with 19.2% in the period 2014-2016. The one that follows shows the great jump: it climbs to 32.3% between 2016 and 2018, and in the last two stages (2017 to 2019 and 2018 to 2020) it maintains 35.8%.
On this point, the work pointed out that in Argentina, as in the rest of the countries “with available information”, the figures on this concept grew worryingly. However, current measurements in the country show that in the Argentine case this increase was the strongest in the region: 16.6%.
What is the concept about? It measures the population that “faces moderate or severe obstacles to obtaining enough food throughout a year.”
“Moderate food insecurity describes a situation in which a person’s ability to obtain food is subject to certain uncertainties, and has been forced to reduce, sometimes over a year, the quality and/or quantity of food. food you eat, due to lack of money or other resources, they explained.
Source: a24