In an exclusive interview with ChileCarne, the Undersecretary of Agriculture, Ignacia Fernández, discussed the importance of food safety in the current context and the strategic actions to guarantee it in the country. The Secretary of State delved into how the national strategy seeks to strengthen production and access to nutritious food, face the challenges of climate change and promote public-private collaboration to ensure food safety at all stages of production, detailing the progress and goals that are transforming the food security landscape in Chile.
- What is the importance of food security in the current context and what are the main actions being carried out to ensure it in the country?
Ensuring that all people, regardless of age and status, have access to adequate and sufficient food should be a top priority objective for all countries. In Chile, the COVID 19 pandemic provided evidence that much work remains to be done to address this problem. Prior to the pandemic, according to data from the 2017 CASEN Survey, 10.2% of people were in a condition of moderate food insecurity, that is, they faced uncertainties in their ability to obtain food, and/or had been forced to accept lower quality of the food they consume, while 3.4% faced a situation of severe food insecurity that, in the worst cases, could mean going one or more days without eating. At the height of the pandemic, 25% of households that had decreased their income were food insecure, and food insecurity in quintiles 1 and 2 stood at 30% and 20% (UNDP-MDSF 2020, Impactos socioeconómicos de la pandemia en los hogares de Chile).
Addressing this reality, and confronting the multiple causes behind food insecurity is a mandate of our Ministry, in a joint and articulated work with other ministries and public services. That is why last May we unveiled the National Sovereignty Strategy for Food Security with the purpose of enshrining the right to food and defining a set of fundamental principles to ensure this right to all people. The strategy adopts a comprehensive approach that addresses the different links in the agrifood value chain, from food production to consumption, including actions in cross-cutting aspects such as sustainability, gender equity, rural youth, decent work and associativity, among others. Far from having a protectionist approach, the strategy proposes a definition of food sovereignty that seeks to strengthen agricultural production and local trade in conjunction with the development of the agroexport sector.
- How will food production and food security be strengthened within the framework of the National Food Security Sovereignty Strategy?
To carry out this proposal, we are working on a Plan of Action that articulates the policies and programs with which different ministries contribute to ensure the right to food.
A key area for food security in which several ministries have competence is combating malnutrition. Malnutrition is generated when a person's diet contains too few nutrients, which can result in malnutrition, but also overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases related to people's diet, which are becoming more and more frequent. While in 2019, 23.5% of girls, boys and adolescents between pre-kindergarten and first middle school suffered from obesity, in 2021 the percentage of girls, boys and adolescents with obesity rose to 31%, 7.5 percentage points higher than two years earlier (Informe Mapa Nutricional 2021, JUNAEB).
In this sense, we must guarantee permanent physical, social and economic access to safe, nutritious food in sufficient quantity to satisfy nutritional requirements and food preferences, so that people can lead an active and healthy life. This can only be achieved through the construction of a sustainable food system that allows us to achieve healthy diets for all. Initiatives included in the action plan, such as the micro food banks that promote the reduction of food loss and waste that we seek to implement in coordination with other ministries and local governments, are an example of the work we are promoting in this regard.
With regard to the tasks of the Ministry of Agriculture, we are working on the design of a program to support the sustainable production and marketing of vegetables and other foods of high nutritional value that are part of the basic food basket of households. This will increase the supply of healthy, safe food produced by Family Farmer Agriculture, in order to contribute to improving access to these foods by Chilean households. Our bet is that, by strengthening the production and marketing capacity of agricultural products for the domestic market, we will improve the availability and prices of these products, which are often not consumed sufficiently because families face difficulties in accessing them due to their high cost.
During the first year, the program will focus on supporting the production of vegetables, tomatoes and potatoes, a prioritization that is justified given that these foods are an important part of the fresh food necessary to ensure a healthy diet, as well as being of strategic importance for the country's agriculture. In the following years, we hope to expand to other strategic items for national production and household consumption.
- What are the most relevant challenges facing Chile in terms of food security and how are they being addressed?
One of the most important challenges we face in ensuring food production is climate change. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), by 2050 we will need to produce 50% more food to supply the population, a challenge that is threatened by the climate context.
Chile is considered a country highly vulnerable to the impacts it will have on natural systems and communities. Climate change is modifying the productive capacities of the forestry and livestock sector, natural resources and agroecosystems. This has productive, but also economic, social and environmental impacts. Agriculture is a strategic activity for any country, whose social impact is evident in the workforce it generates, the production chains it mobilizes and the regulatory effects of demography on the occupation of the territory.
We are already seeing how the new agro-climatic conditions are reconfiguring the production map, with the loss of suitability of soils in the central zone for certain types of conventional production and the displacement of export crops to the south of the country, where production conditions could improve for fruit and wine production. Some studies show that the relocation of fruit and vegetable production to the south is already underway. Goat farming will be the most affected, while cattle farming could improve in the southern zone, due to the condition of the pastures.
We are working on different actions to address this complex situation. Through the National Irrigation Commission, we are promoting the new Irrigation Law, an initiative that seeks to modernize the guarantees of water security for small farmers, as well as to achieve efficiency in the use of water, incorporate irrigated agriculture in lagging areas, the continuous improvement of irrigation systems to achieve the much needed adaptation to climate change, and consequently, guarantee food security, all with the idea of advancing in sustainable and equitable rural and territorial development. We hope that this initiative will be approved soon, and thus advance in greater water security.
During this year we will also present the Incentive System for Sustainable Soil Management (SIGESS) bill, which will transform the current soil program and will allow us to contribute to the agro-environmental sustainability of the soil resource, whose objectives will be the recovery of the productive potential of degraded agricultural soils and the maintenance of the levels of improvement achieved, which will be governed by the rules of this law.
What measures are being implemented to ensure food safety at all stages of production, from farm to table?
Food safety is key to strengthening food sovereignty and security, so that the population has access to sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food. In Chile, the institutional framework for food risk management is mainly concentrated in three institutions: the Ministry of Health, through the Regional Ministerial Secretariats, the Ministry of Agriculture through the Agriculture and Livestock Service SAG, and the Ministry of Economy, through the National Fishing and Aquaculture Service SERNAPESCA. In addition, the Presidential Advisory Commission ACHIPIA, has the mandate to promote the coordination of these institutions and support evidence-based decision making.
Our country is characterized by having a technically strong institutional framework in terms of food safety and quality, which is shared by the public. There is evidence that the population tends to trust food labeling, the production process and the supervisory institutions, and farmers are also identified as the most trustworthy actors in the food chain.
Although this national institutional framework has made significant progress in its sectoral capacity to address food safety, it is necessary to address certain systemic challenges, for example, in relation to primary production, the harmonization and integration between SAG and the Ministry of Health of programs for monitoring and/or control of pesticide residues in fruit and vegetable products for national consumption would significantly strengthen the management of these risks, optimizing the use of resources and efficiency in the performance of the system. This is in line with the latest report available from the Food Information and Alert Network RIAL, which points out the need to pay attention to the greater prevalence of chemical hazards, mainly pesticide residues, in fresh fruits and vegetables marketed nationally.
Strengthening our institutional framework to take on these matters is a fundamental task. For this reason, in the coming weeks we will convene the ACHIPIA Council, made up of various Undersecretariats with competence in food safety, precisely to analyze different options for institutionalizing this body, which was born with an advisory nature, but which we must work to ensure its permanent character.
- What is the participation and collaboration of the public and private sectors in the promotion of food security in Chile?
There is a public-private alliance in the promotion of food security. Only in the elaboration of the Sovereignty Strategy for Food Security we worked in coordination with eight ministries, 55 public institutions, including regional and communal governments, 84 private institutions, 24 academic institutions, three international organizations and 43 individuals. Aproleche Osorno, Fedeleche, Fedefruta and Horticrece are some of the private actors that participated in the development of this important national initiative.
These actors are gathered around the National Commission for Food Security and Sovereignty (CNSSA), formed on June 16, 2022 at La Moneda Palace to prepare and monitor the implementation of the Sovereignty Strategy for Food Security.
In the coming months, as we move forward with the implementation of the action plan, we expect to increasingly include regional and local governments, many of which are already implementing actions that we should join as a government, to support the feeding of people in different contexts.
- What strategies are being implemented to strengthen the capacity to respond to possible crises or natural disasters that may affect food production?
I have pointed out that climate change is stressing agriculture due to the greater intensity and occurrence of extreme events that impact on crops, harvests and agricultural and forestry land. These agro-climatic events are often combined with other phytosanitary events in a scenario that leads to repeated emergencies that we must work to address in a different way, with greater capacity for anticipation and prevention, as well as through more coordinated work with other institutions that have instruments to support risk mitigation and response strategies.
An example of the work we have established in this sense is the one we are carrying out together with Chilehuevos, CORFO, Banco Estado and Agroseguros to face the economic and productive impact that the latest outbreak of Avian Influenza has had on poultry production.
In this regard, in addition to establishing a technical roundtable between SAG and the industry to strengthen the surveillance and early warning network and thus reduce and control the appearance of new outbreaks, we seek to support the productive rehabilitation of the affected companies with instruments aimed at supporting competitiveness, technical assistance and business recovery.
The activation of this set of instruments represents an intersectoral effort by the government to develop public policy solutions in the event of an unforeseen crisis such as the Avian Influenza, prioritizing good management, efficient use of public resources and the capacity to articulate public-private work instances. It is also an objective to lay the foundations of a working methodology that may be useful for similar events in the future and that challenge the capacity of the State to build good and lasting solutions.
- How is food safety monitored and evaluated in Chile, and what are the key indicators used to measure progress in this area?
The official source for reporting food insecurity data in Chile is the National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (CASEN). It contains relevant data on the prevalence of moderate to severe food insecurity at the national level, disaggregated by region, gender, belonging to indigenous peoples, poverty, among others. It is important to note that this information only began to be reported in the CASEN 2017, after the International Food Insecurity Scale (FIES) designed by FAO was integrated, with the purpose of knowing the national situation and at the same time being able to compare with other countries, thus being able to monitor the 2030 Agenda of the SDGs. The CASEN 2022 will be the next update of food insecurity at the national level.
On the other hand, Junaeb's Nutritional Map is reported annually with the objective of dimensioning and alerting about the nutritional situation of students in preschool, elementary and junior high school throughout the national territory, in which variables of malnutrition, stunting and malnutrition by excess (overweight, obesity and severe obesity) are reported, from which the nutritional situation of Chilean households can be indirectly inferred, obtaining data with disaggregation at regional level, by sex, native people and nationality (Chilean or foreign).
At the level of the Ministry of Agriculture, we are following up on the work carried out under the National Commission for Food Security and Sovereignty and we expect to soon make available a series of indicators and goals associated with the implementation of the program to support the sustainable production and marketing of food of high nutritional value.
*This interview was replicated in its entirety from chilecarnes.cl
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