The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security And Nutrition

 The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus affected millions of people all over the world. It almost shattered the income of the nation, education system, working structure, dietary patterns, and most importantly food security and nutrition. People were already suffering from malnutrition and hunger before the hit of the virus and now the condition is even worse. Despite any action taken place we had to face the worst effect of COVID-19 itself. Thinking about how it has actually shown an impact on food security and nutrition? Well, go through this post and get your answer!


  1. Lockdown & Restrictions Increased Stress for Urban Centers

Lockdown, border restrictions were seen all around the world to protect the citizens of the nation. However, it slowed down harvest in several parts of the world, due to which millions of seasonal workers were living without bread. Also, it constrained the transportation of food in big markets. Food markets, meat processing plants were forced to close their shops and give breaks to their workers. Farmers were dumping milk and burying perishable products because of lower demand of customers and supply chain disruption. All this affects people in urban centers who almost struggle to access daily needed items like dairy, vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, etc. 


  1. Sudden Increase of Basic Items Prices

The staple grains in the global market are robust now just as was seen in the year 2019 when staple foods were adequate. But if you see, the majority of the population in the world accessing food from the local markets, and nutrition and food security are highly susceptible to disruption during the time of the pandemic. The rising costs of food, loss of income, high levels of unemployment, all these reasons were making it difficult to access food for the people of the country. Even the prices of products have begun to rise at the time of pandemic when people had less money in their pockets. 


  1. Recent Data Clears figures on Food Security

Before the hit of this pandemic, 820+ million people were identified as “food insecure”. According to the latest report, around 135 million people are categorized at worse or in crisis level. This number could double at the end of the year due to the severe impacts of COVID-19. Similar to that, the children under the age of 5 years stand at 144 million who are facing the problem of malnutrition and food insecurity. That is 1+ out of 5 children all over the world. These numbers can grow rapidly and not to doubt this coronavirus has brought extreme poverty in the year 2020. 


  1. Locust Attack on Crops

The pandemic came when food systems and food security were already under strain. Climate change, natural disasters, conflict, the arrival of plagues and pests were some of the reasons undermining food security in several contexts. For instance, in East Africa, the worst effects of locusts were seen where they threaten the crop at the time of harvest. Even in India, many states had to go through the worst effects of the Locust attack.


The Final Note!

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised an alarm for food security and nutrition. It has been clear that now the time has come where we have to seriously look at the matter to sustain our future generations. There is an urgent need to think about how we can produce, market, process, dispose of waste, consume our food, and bring adequacy in supply. 


CARE India understands the value of food security and nutrition to children and adults, hence making efforts to become more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient. To know more about our campaigns and efforts, connect with us and know our strategies. According to us, we can transform our food security system only if we address the immediate and coming needs of people during & beyond the crisis. 
Location: India

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