{"id":50059187,"date":"2022-10-10T14:03:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T13:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.dialogochino.net\/?p=59187"},"modified":"2023-10-03T22:16:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T21:16:12","slug":"59091-hunger-latin-america-rise-food-export-records","status":"publish","type":"photo_story","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/uncategorized\/59091-hunger-latin-america-rise-food-export-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunger is on the rise in Latin America \u2013 while its food exports break records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been four days since Mariana Cristina Lourdes Moreira has been able to eat properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she and her three small children lived in Santo Ant\u00f4nio de Posse, a rural town of 23,000 people around two hours from S\u00e3o Paulo, hunger was always nipping at their heels. Moreira, now 25, earned money picking oranges on a nearby farm. On her best days, she could fill seven crates in a 10-hour shift, earning her 14 Brazilian reais (US$2.70), or roughly 294 reais (US$57) per month. With rent at 450 reais (US$86), it wasn\u2019t even close to enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreira had lived in S\u00e3o Paulo once before, but had to move back home to help her mother look after her brother, who has a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mariana<\/div>
Mariana Moreira: \u201cNo matter what I do, hunger is always there\u201d (Image: Dan Agostini \/ Di\u00e1logo Chino)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When she looked back on her time in the city, she remembered how kind some of its people had been, always willing to help. So as hunger became a more regular occurrence in her home, and when she could no longer bear to wipe the tears from her children\u2019s cheeks, she scraped together enough money to take the bus back to S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, sitting at a cafeteria table at the downtown S\u00e3o Martinho de Lima Community Centre, Moreira pulls back the peel of a mango for her six-year-old daughter, Elo\u00e1. Her other children \u2013 Elo\u00edsa, 4, and Kaleb, 2 \u2013 munch on bread and sip chocolate milk while they wait for help with their own fruit. Once her three little ones are fed, Moreira turns to her own meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here at the community centre, a group of volunteers led by Father J\u00falio Lancellotti \u2013 a champion for people experiencing hunger and homelessness \u2013 serves breakfast seven days a week to between 700 and 1,000 people, including Moreira, Elo\u00e1, Elo\u00edsa and Kaleb. For lunch, it\u2019s an even bigger crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some who come for the free meals have struggled with food security for most of their lives. Others more recently became a part of the more than 33 million people<\/a> in Brazil now going hungry, after the pandemic put 377 people out of work per hour<\/a> in its first year alone, and the rising cost of food made it nearly impossible to sustain their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man<\/div>
Father J\u00falio Lancellotti distributes breakfast to homeless and vulnerable people at the S\u00e3o Martinho de Lima Community Centre in the east of S\u00e3o Paulo (Image: Dan Agostini \/ Di\u00e1logo Chino)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow I can only buy half of what I used to,\u201d says Moreira. \u201cLots of times I\u2019ve had to put things back after the cashier rings them up because I didn\u2019t have enough money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not only happening in Brazil. Across Latin America, families are struggling to put food on the table, despite rising commodities production and exports from the region that some say \u201cfeeds the world\u201d. After slowly pulling its population out of the grips of hunger over the last 15 years, Latin America has, once again, been overtaken by food insecurity, as the pandemic, the war in Ukraine<\/a> and more frequent extreme climate events<\/a> weigh heavily on what ends up on people\u2019s plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pandemic increases hunger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, almost 3.1 billion people around the world could not afford a healthy diet. According to the \u201cState of Food Security and Nutrition in the World<\/a>\u201d report, published this year by the UN, 117.3 million of those people were in Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s 21% of the region\u2019s population, and 6.9% more than the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as food continues to become more unaffordable \u2013 the report notes that the cost of a healthy diet will rise again as food prices have surged in 2021 and 2022 \u2013 food security and proper nutrition, both issues already troubling the region, are expected to move even further out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n