Cuba: World Food Day, which is commemorated on October 16, is currently celebrated in more than 150 countries. This is an important date because it is an opportunity to raise public awareness on issues related to nutrition education and food.
In this year two events, one positive and the other negative, mark the date in Cuba: the positive is the approval by the Council of Ministers of the SAN Plan, or the Food Sovereignty and Nutrition Education Plan, which is already beginning to be implemented throughout the country, the Granma newspaper publishes.
The negative is the COVID-19 pandemic, which Cuba has faced with its extensive health protection network, which has limited the number of fatalities, while the country advances in the search for an effective vaccine, Soberana 01.
The Council of Ministers of Cuba approved on July 22 the National Plan for Food Sovereignty and Nutrition Education, the first of its kind in the country’s history.
The Minister of Agriculture, Gustavo Rodríguez, assured that it is based on the nation’s ability to produce food in a sustainable way and give the population access to a balanced, nutritious and safe diet, reducing dependence on external means and inputs, with respect for cultural diversity and environmental responsibility.
During the meeting, the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, insisted on the need to strengthen the work in the municipalities, “because everything we do has to be articulated in them.”
Representatives of 22 ministries, 11 business groups, 25 science, technology and innovation entities, ten civil society organizations and five international organizations worked for more than a year in the preparation of the SAN Plan, which includes background information, diagnosis, methodology, conceptual framework and an action plan that contemplates synergy between national efforts and international cooperation.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) accompanied the formulation from the methodological point of view and based on the experiences in the construction of food security plans in the region, within the framework of the program, co-financed by the European Union, Impact, resilience, sustainability and transformation for food and nutrition security, and in collaboration with Oxfam International.
This process was nourished by more than a dozen workshops, intersectoral meetings and consultations, as well as by purposes already defined in other strategies and programs on sustainable food production.
Among the strategic issues identified are: reducing dependence on food and input imports; guarantee the quality and safety and decrease of food losses and waste; consolidate local food systems; and mobilize educational, cultural and communication systems to strengthen food and nutrition education.
The UN report, released on July 13, states that the hell of hunger today is home to 820 million human beings. To that number, more than 270 million may be added until the end of the year.
Two billion people suffer from food insecurity, that is, they do not have regular access to nutritious food, in sufficient quality and quantity. The increase in hunger and food insecurity this year is due to the slowdown in the global economy due to the pandemic, aggravated by the restrictions imposed on the movement of goods and people, which has increased the unemployment rate.
In our continent there is no shortage of food. What lacks is Justice. Today, 84 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean depend on school to access a good diet. Of them, ten million only eat a minimally nutritious meal thanks to the school snack. Now the virus takes them away from school and closer to hunger.
Another great paradox of our world today is that hunger is not only increasing. Obesity has become a plague that plagues rich and poor countries alike. It is a global threat.
The SAN Plan points out that a cultural and ethical revolution is needed to replace the logic of the “free market” with that of sharing and equal rights, which is the one carried out by Cuba.