Covid-19 and agriculture: the coming contradictory hunger pandemic, 11 May 2020

On 24 March 2020, the Chair of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Thanawat Tiensin, addressed governments with an urgent warning. The state of food security and nutrition had already been alarming before the outbreak of COVID-19, but he expected the rising numbers of insufficiently nourished people to be aggravated as a result of the pandemic, “with the poor – notably the urban poor – people living in remote areas, migrant and informal sector workers, people in humanitarian crises and conflict areas, and other vulnerable groups likely to face the worst consequences”. Tiensin recalled that after the financial crisis of 2008, the economic downturn had morphed into a full-blown food crisis. Therefore, he warned that “we must avoid this from happening again, for the sake of our peoples and our planet.”