BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Only a few years in the past, on the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of households in Latin America and the Caribbean(LAC) didn’t know whether or not they would have sufficient meals for the following day.
The shutdown of economies, huge job losses, and the sharp rise in costs pushed meals insecurity to ranges not seen in many years. And but, the area stunned the world: between 2020 and 2024, the prevalence of average or extreme meals insecurity decreased from 33.7% to 25.2%, probably the most vital discount recorded globally. It was a exceptional achievement, made in a worldwide context marked by overlapping crises.
Nonetheless, behind this progress lies a silent enemy that doesn’t seem in harvest pictures or market openings but erodes the buying energy of hundreds of thousands of households day by day: meals inflation. This isn’t only a non permanent rise in costs, however a persistent pattern that threatens to reverse hard-won progress and deepen inequalities.
Throughout 2022 and 2023, meals costs systematically rose sooner than normal inflation throughout the area. South America recorded a peak of 20.8 % in April 2022, Central America 19.2 % in August, and the Caribbean 15.3 % in December.
In January 2023, the regional meals worth index rose to 13.6% year-over-year, in comparison with an total inflation charge of 8.5%. This hole hits hardest the poorest households, the place a big share of revenue is spent on meals.
The adjustment of labour incomes to this improve has been uneven. In Mexico, wages adopted a pattern much like meals costs, partially offsetting the decline in buying energy. However in most nations, actual incomes contracted, decreasing households’ potential to entry ample and nutritious diets. This isn’t merely a short-term subject: it displays structural weaknesses that amplify the impression of any exterior shock—whether or not financial, climatic, or geopolitical.
Though the post-pandemic expansionary insurance policies, the struggle in Ukraine, rising fertilizer prices, disrupted commerce routes, and excessive local weather occasions created a “excellent storm” for meals safety, the issue runs deeper.
The area has been experiencing low financial progress, excessive dependence on commodity exports, and restricted productive diversification. Moreover, there was a worrying decline in private and non-private funding in agriculture over the previous 20 years, which has weakened the sector’s productiveness and resilience.
The SOFI 2025 warns {that a} 10 % improve in meals costs can result in a 3.5 % rise in average or extreme meals insecurity, a 4 % improve within the case of ladies, and a 5 % improve within the prevalence of acute malnutrition amongst youngsters beneath 5. In different phrases, meals inflation is not only an financial subject: it has direct results on the well being, well-being, and way forward for hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Moreover, there’s the excessive value of a nutritious diet. In 2024, greater than 2.6 billion individuals worldwide had been unable to afford it. In Latin America and the Caribbean, this food regimen prices 9 % greater than the worldwide common, and within the Caribbean, 23 % extra.
In absolute phrases, reaching a nutritious diet requires US$5.16 PPP per day, an quantity out of attain for 182 million individuals within the area. Which means that even in nations with low starvation prevalence, entry to nutritious meals stays a luxurious for a big share of the inhabitants.
In mild of this situation, the SOFI 2025 outlines a roadmap to safeguard achievements and construct resilience.
First, strengthen social safety methods to mitigate the impression of worth will increase on probably the most susceptible. Money transfers, focused subsidies, and faculty feeding packages can function efficient shields if well-designed and delivered on time.
Second, remodel and diversify agrifood methods to scale back dependence on a slim set of commodities and strengthen native manufacturing of nutritious meals. This requires investments in logistics, storage, and transport infrastructure to scale back prices borne by ultimate shoppers.
Third, keep open, predictable, and rules-based worldwide commerce. Commerce restrictions exacerbate volatility and make meals much more costly; due to this fact, they need to be averted, particularly throughout instances of disaster.
Fourth, strengthen market data and monitoring methods to anticipate inflationary pressures and allow fast, evidence-based responses.
And fifth, promote local weather resilience and macroeconomic stability by means of sustainable farming practices, expanded entry to agricultural insurance coverage, and efficient threat administration, alongside accountable fiscal and financial insurance policies.
Latin America and the Caribbean have proven that, with sound insurance policies and political will, it’s attainable to scale back starvation even in an opposed international context. However meals inflation reminds us that progress is fragile, and structural vulnerabilities can erode it rapidly.
The area has the expertise, capability, and productive potential; what is required now’s strategic funding, regional coordination, and renewed dedication in order that the appropriate to enough meals ceases to be an unfulfilled aim and turns into a tangible actuality for all.
*Máximo Torero Cullen is the chief economist of the Meals and Agriculture Group (FAO) and Regional Consultant advert interim for Latin America and the Caribbean.
