4.9 million Hondurans suffer from food insecurity

About 4.9 million people suffer “food insecurity” in Honduras, where 1.5 million are malnourished and thousands more do not have enough resources to access a healthy diet, leading to serious health problems, FAO warned.

“About 4.9 million people suffer from moderate to mild food insecurity” in Honduras after “sacrificing the quality or quantity of food consumed at home,” said the representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Tegucigalpa, Fátima Espinal, in an interview with EFE.

In addition to the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic in Honduras, which affected agricultural and food chains, the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis, which increased the prices of fertilizers and food, and caused inevitable consequences for food security, he explained.

“We cannot look at Honduras separately from what is happening in the world. You have to look at Honduras in the context of what’s going on in the world.”Espinal stressed.

He assured that Honduras is one of the countries “the most vulnerable” of the world to climate change, and in recent years has experienced episodes of extreme droughts and more intense rains that cause floods.

According to the latest report on The state of food and nutrition security in 2022 according to the FAO, 1.5 million Hondurans, equivalent to 15.3% of the population, are malnourished – people who do not get enough food to meet minimum dietary energy needs.

Espinal assured that people with less means do not have access to a healthy diet, so they decide to buy non-nutritious foods, thereby endangering their health due to increased overweight or low micronutrient deficiency.

Honduras “It’s not a rich country, it’s a country with poor people”, where “more than 70%” of people live in poverty, and more than 50% in extreme poverty, so they have “less chance to access a healthy diet”he emphasized.

One in seven children in Honduras, he added, “suffers from malnutrition,” which is why the country must promote it “Healthy nutrition and mechanisms that can help in the rapid recovery of malnutrition in children.”

The FAO representative called on the Honduran authorities to promote “education about food and nutrition”and convinced that public school feeding programs are an ideal strategy for caring for malnourished children.

FAO supports Honduras in the promotion of school gardens, as a pedagogical tool for encouraging children to consume vegetables and fruits nutritiously.

In his opinion, family farming is the “ideal tool” to deal with the food security crisis that Honduras is experiencing and “avoid the shocks of the poorest” in rural areas, where the highest levels of poverty are recorded.

“We need to consider and encourage specific or differentiated policies for family farming so that family farmers can gradually move from their own survival and floundering towards the value chain, which allows for greater income generation and more solid and resilient earnings for these populations”he emphasized.

He also emphasized the need for cooperation between countries in promoting food and nutrition security, and reminded that at the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, held in January, the countries agreed to continue with Food security, nutrition and eradication of hunger, Plan SAN-CELACwhich was approved in 2015.

Espinal considers it important to promote “climate-friendly production that respects natural resources and uses technological innovations that do not degrade natural resources.”

He asserted that these measures include the reduction of pesticides, rational use of water, use seeds that are more resistant or require less water and conserve watersheds, among others.

The country must also reduce inequalities in rural areas through investment in the agricultural sector, innovation and development of technology.