Africa update: The food security 'death sentence' blighting millions of lives

CI's Cathy Rutivi lifts the lid on the horrendous food shortages which many Africans face - and outlines how the consumer movement is trying to help. 

The right to basic needs is still a far cry for most consumers in Africa. Access to basic essential services like water and food is still a constant problem.

Food security is a major issue here and even food sufficiency alone does not guarantee an end to hunger. There are many factors internal or external that can affect or alter the availability, affordability, quality and safety of food in different degrees.

A number of factors like war, natural disasters like floods or even drought and famine have often displaced people and left them without food.

There are many people who rely on humanitarian relief aid just to survive especially in the Sahel and Horn of Africa regions. Access to land for farming is also a critical issue in most countries in Africa as this also addresses food security.

Most countries in Sub Saharan Africa have seen a decline in national income due to the economic and financial crises, poor governance, corruption and wars.

This has resulted in people living in very hard and harsh economic environments with high unemployment and lack of service delivery for most services.

When you picture people in these situations what they are mostly concerned about is having just a meal a day, if they can find it. Even in countries like South Africa (SA) that are considered more developed than most developing countries in Africa, 12 million people go to bed hungry each night.

According to a recent published report by the University of Cape town’s African Food Security Unit Network: “There are children whose daily food is half a white bread sandwich” (in most cases it is just half a slice with no spread on it; just dry taken with water).

The implication of this is a death sentence, says Food Bank SA. The figures on the surveyed cities in South Africa showed 77% of households were either moderately or severely food insecure. Most analysts however believe the figures to be far higher than this.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, of the 870 million people worldwide who are chronically undernourished, 234 million of them live in Sub Saharan Africa .

The main problem is also access to adequate nutrition, not necessarily availability of food. People are too poor to afford to buy food and accessibility is also a major issue for people in rural areas where either markets or supermarkets are located far around urban areas.

Queuing for food at a school in Eastern Cape, South Africa

Picture by Shelley Christians; Image by: The times/Shelley Christians/Gallo Images

Most school feeding programmes like the one seen above in the picture are used as an intervention to ensure children receive at least a balanced meal of corn maize and bean soup.

Towards the end of last year in October 2013, I attended a food safety workshop on Early Warning Rapid Alert (EWRA) systems hosted by FAO in Rome, Italy.

It was a platform to share knowledge and experiences on early warning, rapid alert and horizon scanning systems.

It also served to generate concrete ideas on how FAO - in collaboration with other key partners  - could assist countries and regions to build early warning and rapid alert capacities in food safety and to benefit from global/regional horizon scanning as well as creating opportunities for collaboration.

The workshop discussions sought to answer critical questions that, given the many competing national priorities, to what extend are the EWRA systems in food safety a realistic priority for low to medium income countries, and, if not, how do we make them a priority?

A lot of food in these countries is lost in post-harvest activities from the farm before it reaches the markets. This results in food losses which also has a big impact on food security.

Over the years, consumer organisations in Africa have participated in national, regional and international food security programmes aimed at reducing poverty and hunger as well as collaborating with research NGOs/institutions and other global CI Members to establish the fundamental issues of the whole food chain (accessibility, affordability, availability and safety).

CI Africa will soon be working on a paper on Food Security, Nutrition and Safety in Africa to define a CI Africa agenda on the issue, including recommendations for consumer policy positions.

We would like to hear from our Members in Africa about their current country experiences regarding food security, nutrition and safety. Please share with us on our African Consumers International Facebook group or via Twitter.

New mercury convention adopted by 94 governments

Michael T. Bender, Co-Coordinator of the Zero Mercury Working Group, a global coalition of over 90 public interest non-governmental organisations, blogs on the dangers of mercury, outlining what is being done to reduce its use and exposure.

A new global legally binding agreement, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, was signed by 94 countries last October in Japan after more than a decade of study and debate.

In January 2014, the World Health Organization’s Executive Board adopted a resolution in support of the new Convention.

During that meeting and on behalf of Consumers International, I presented a supporting statement.

However, the resolution won’t be finalised until it’s adopted by the World Assembly in May.

Mercury presents a health hazard because of its global dissemination, persistence, toxicity, and bioaccumulative nature.

Exposure is ubiquitous and can occur through a variety of pathways, but most prominently through ingestion of contaminated fish and inhalation of mercury vapours from artisanal and small scale gold mining (ASGM).

The evidence now available suggests that methylmercury has adverse effects at doses below those declared acceptable 10 to 15 years ago.  Yet it may take several years until exposure guidelines can be updated to reflect the changing body of epidemiological evidence.

Therefore, an extra degree of caution about prenatal methylmercury exposure seems warranted, and adds urgency to the Convention’s objective of reducing emissions.

The Convention’s objective is to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds.

Over time, the Convention bans primary mining for mercury, curtails trade, phases out mercury uses in products and processes, and regulates releases from coal-fired power plants and metals production facilities.

The Convention is designed to be pragmatic and flexible, and attempts to strike a balance with control measures tailored to particular issues, some legally binding and others voluntary.

It recognises issues such as ASGM cannot be solved by regulations alone, but require broader attention within a sustainable development context, allowing time for societal and industry transformation.

However, the treaty has been rendered less effective by long delays before important mercury reduction mandates for larger sources enter into force.

To the extent politically and technologically feasible, reducing human exposure to mercury through the Convention and related activities is projected to save billions of dollars of avoided human exposure costs worldwide for generations to come.

A recent study estimates that up to €9 billion per year in avoided damages could be saved in Europe alone by reducing the exposure risk from methlymercury to children's brains.

Now that the Convention has been adopted, all governments should be urged to quickly ratify the Convention and enact policies to reduce mercury use, trade and pollution and exposure to mercury. Once 50 countries ratify the Convention, it enters into force. 

While there are alternatives to most mercury products and processes, and cost-effective technologies available for controlling most major sources, there are no alternatives to global cooperation to reduce human exposure to mercury. 

Michael T. Bender is Co-Coordinator of the Zero Mercury Working Group, a global coalition of over 90 public interest nongovernmental organisations from more than 50 countries, see:  http://www.zeromercury.org/. Parts of this blog appeared in an article by Michael Bender, Ned Groth and Elena Lymberidi, published in the Journal of Public Health Policy in October 2013.

For more information on the new Convention, visit: http://www.mercuryconvention.org/.

Shocking food safety findings uncovered by CI project

CI food expert Anna Glayzer blogs on recent meetings which underline the huge challenges of ensuring food is safe for consumers.

One of the biggest challenges facing a global membership organisation is unity in the face of staggering diversity.

This is true in relation to all of the issues that CI works on, but none more so than food.

I have been reminded of this over the past few weeks having attended two very different meetings on food safety.

The first was a meeting of the International Consumer Research and Testing food topic group, in Stockholm, in which consumer group representatives from around the world shared the results and techniques of the food testing that they had done in 2013, and spoke of their plans for 2014.

I say, “from around the world,” but attendance was limited to those groups with the resources and/or proximity to enable participation.

The countries represented were Sweden, Denmark, France, UK, Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the USA.

Tests included antibiotic resistance in meat and poultry, pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables, mercury in fish and arsenic in rice.

In all of these countries, testing by consumer organisations acts as a supplement and a watchdog to government testing programmes.  A strong consumer organisation is a vital part of any national food safety system.

A little over a week later I travelled to Bangkok for a Regional Workshop on Food Safety Control Measures in Developing Asian Countries.

The meeting was the culmination of a project run by CI’s Office for Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East.

Research had been conducted in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos PDR.  For each country, a report on the state of the national food safety system had been prepared.

The research was carried out by CI staff with the cooperation of governments.

The meeting was an opportunity for participants to discuss the results of the research and feed into the final versions of the country reports.

We were also joined by experts from Thailand and Malaysia.  The finished reports will be used as the basis for improvements to food safety.

The food safety challenges facing these countries are huge. Problems include a lack of standards and policies, uncoordinated or disjointed governance, inadequate testing facilities, lack of staff or lack of trained staff, porous borders and an absence of adequate enforcement of rules.

Some of the chemical contaminants found in food simply would not be present in European or American food.

In Bangladesh for example, formalin - a type of formaldehyde - is used so regularly to pass off old fish as fresh, that a hand held testing device has been developed.

Carbides are used to ripen bananas and mangos and pesticide residues are found at levels well above any that might be considered ‘safe.’

In all four countries food borne pathogens are rampant and kill people with a regularity that is inconceivable in Europe or the US.

I was particularly struck by a comment made by one of the participants from Myanmar.  The comment was that Myanmar has been open to development agencies and overseas aid for three years but the focus is on poverty or food security.

Consumers International is the first organisation to come and talk about food safety.  This comment is fairly shocking.

Food safety is the assurance that eating something will not damage your health.  It is an absolutely fundamental requirement, as important as having enough food.

The right to satisfaction of basic needs and the right to safety are the first two of the ten rights on which CI is founded.

At the same time, it is immensely heartening to know that CI is working to try to protect these rights for all consumers.  

In fact, the belief that everyone deserves safe, nutritious food is what keeps the consumer movement unified.  We all have much to learn from each other along the way.

Food safety is just as important as food security in Africa

CI’s Head of Africa Onica Makwakwa looks at the work CI Members are doing around food safety on the continent

On a continent where food security is still a challenge due to limited availability and high cost, food safety may not be prioritised but it is integral to achieving food security.

The recent meat-label scandal, especially in the Southern Africa region, has highlighted just how misunderstood food safety is in a region where food insecurity, political instability, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other major concerns compete for government attention and priority. 

As such, many African countries are yet to prioritise the regulatory infrastructure required to ensure ‘access to nutritionally adequate and safe food as a right to each individual’ as articulated in the World Declaration on Nutrition.

Consumer organisations, therefore, play a pivotal role in advocating on behalf of consumers and holding those in the food value chain accountable for food safety as well as food security.

CI Members on the continent are doing their part to raise awareness about food safety. For example, in Namibia, Michael Gaweseb, executive director of CI Member Namibia ConsumerTrust, facilitated the testing of meat from supermarkets, raising awareness among officials and consumers alike when they found undisclosed meats including kangaroo in some processed meat products.

While in South Africa, Thami Bolani, CEO of CI Member Consumer Fair, continues to lead the media and public outcry on the growing meat-labelling scandal which is now being investigated by the National Consumer Commission.

Contamination of food -- as demonstrated in the case of aflatoxin contamination -- is another big safety issue which also has repercussions on scarcity.

Aflatoxins are poisonous mycotoxins that are produced by toxic fungi affecting crops in the field and during storage thus making them unsafe for human and livestock consumption. In Africa, aflatoxin contamination is a major cause of post-harvest losses and constitutes a significant threat to food security and livelihoods. Indeed, aflatoxins are a major public health challenge throughout the continent.

Richard Henry Kimera, chief executive of CI Member Consumer Education Trust (CONSENT) in Uganda, joined me at a Strategy Development-Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for the African Union on Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa. Kimera is a voice for consumers with his advocacy and consumer education on aflatoxins in Uganda.

With aflatoxin contamination affecting food safety and subsequently food security in most of sub-Saharan Africa, it is imperative that we draw upon existing research and the work conducted by CONSENT and other consumer organisations in the region to further identify and develop the necessary regional expertise on aflatoxin control.

To join our dialogue on aflatoxin control and other emerging issues of importance to consumer organisations in Africa, please join our new Facebook group. If you already have a Facebook account, you can find us here: www.facebook.com/groups/afroconsumers. (If not, you will need a Facebook account to join this group.) This is a closed group, therefore, to join you need to send a request to afroconsumers@groups.facebook.com or search and request to join via Facebook.

Looking forward to connecting and sharing with everyone.

Salt reduction, iodine fortification and the challenge for the international consumer movement

Angela McDougall, Food Policy Advisor for CHOICE (the Australian Consumers Association), asks how we tackle the 'impossible challenge' of reducing salt consumption from the current, dangerously high levels while addressing widespread iodine deficiency - especially as salt is the primary vehicle for iodine fortification. 

According to experts at a recent meeting in Sydney, Australia, it’s not impossible – in fact, they believe that salt reduction and iodine fortification strategies are thoroughly compatible.

But the real challenge for the international consumer movement – and public health advocates – is ensuring that improvements in the food supply in some markets extend to other countries.

I can’t resist mentioning the gloriously long title of the meeting – the ‘WHO and The George Institute for Global Health Jointly Convened Information Exchange Forum with the Private Sector and Nongovernmental Organisations on Salt Reduction and Iodine Fortification Strategies in Public Health’.

Representing CHOICE (the Australian Consumer Association) and Consumers International, I joined government officials, eminent academics, industry and public health representatives from around the world to discuss strategies to address iodine deficiency disorders and reduce salt consumption.

The difficulty is that iodine deficiency is a major problem in many parts of the world - 54 countries, to be precise, including Australia – while at the same time there is a global increase in chronic diseases linked to excessive salt consumption. The World Health Organisation recognises the need to act on both problems, but this presents a challenge because salt is the primary vehicle for iodine fortification.

The key message is: eat less salt, but make sure any salt consumption is adequately iodised. This not only means that table salt should be iodised, but also that salt added to processed foods should be iodised.

Professor Dorothy Mackerras, Chief Public Health Nutrition Adivisor at Food Standards Australia New Zealand, spoke about efforts to address iodine deficiency in Australia. Here, a 2007 regulation mandated iodisation of salt in bread (with the exception of organic bread to allow for consumer choice). The most recent data is currently being assessed and Professor Mackerras expects it will show that this strategy has largely addressed iodine deficiency in Australia.

When it comes to innovative ways to reduce salt, we heard about a potassium chloride product from Nu-Tek. According to the company, their product does not have the bitterness commonly associated with potassium chloride because a special process they have developed, allowing reductions of up to 50% of sodium.

Australian consumer and public health advocates are not alone in despairing at the glacial pace of salt reduction through industry reformulation commitments.

When industry is pressed on why it doesn’t do more, the common response is that consumers won’t buy the product if they reduce salt too quickly.

And while there is much talk of the need for legislated reduction targets and mandatory, effective front-of-pack labelling, such interventions may be a long way off.

In this context, products like Nu-Tek are attractive to companies scared that reducing salt will also reduce market share and therefore have the potential to improve the food supply and health outcomes.

According to Nu-Tek, many companies are using the product in the United States (where there is also retail version available for consumers to purchase) and there is considerable interest in Australia.

Despite this glimmer of hope, it seems that even where companies act to reduce salt, their actions are often limited to markets like Australia where there is pressure from governments and strong public health and consumer groups.

Similarly, we heard from a Nestle nutritionist representing the International Food and Beverage Alliance who stated that her company fortified a popular two-minute noodle product with iodine in Papua New Guinea.

While giving the company credit for this action, it was recognised that there are many other markets where iodine deficiency is a problem that haven’t benefitted from this good corporate citizenship.

I think these examples suggest an opportunity for the international consumer movement to act.

Our organisations should call on multinational companies to extend salt reduction programs in developed countries to developing countries and offer iodised food products they develop across markets where there is iodine deficiency.

As the Australian example shows, iodine deficiency is not limited to developing countries but it is a problem that can be fixed. And as developing countries are increasingly targeted by multinational food companies, chronic health problems caused by excessive salt consumption will spread.

With so many governments reluctant to regulate to reduce diet-related disease, consumer groups should join forces and push for private sector action to address these problems. 

Trust in ASEAN food safety has a long way to go

Seah Seng Choon, executive director of CI member Consumer Association of Singapore, reflects on the interconnectedness of food safety in the global marketplace.

We are living in a world where we have to rely on other countries as well as our own to ensure that wholesome foods are produced and supplied. Because of this interconnectedness, it is of utmost importance that all countries play their part in keeping a good standard of practice in food production.

Recently, I attended a workshop titled Strategies for Improved Food Safety in Southeast Asia in Bangkok organised by Consumers International (CI), Thailand’s National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standard (ACFS), and the German International Cooperation (GIZ).

The workshop focused on food production in ASEAN countries and asked the question: “Can we trust one another to export wholesome food that meets international standards of production?”

The answer was a resounding “no”.

The issues raised at the conference included contamination, use of substandard ingredients such as gutter oil, food shortages, genetically modified food, nutrition, import and export control and food standards, among others.

Improvements are being made, according to the workshop participants. Some examples of best practice shared at the workshop included tests on cooking oil being carried out in Malaysia; the re-location of street food to facilities with adequate hygiene, sanitation, clean water and lighting in Singapore; and the removal of Bisphenol A an industrial chemical, from children’s milk bottles in Malaysia.

We are not a long way off from having an open market in the ASEAN region. Hence it is a good idea to keep the discussion on such issues alive so that progress can be made to help each one of us to understand the issues and perhaps work on solutions.

I congratulate CI’s Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East for taking the initiative to kick start this discussion on food safety issues. But, we should not stop at this workshop.

We should continue to get the relevant parties in the region involved in food safety to continue to meet and explore areas where regional and international collaboration are feasible. 

We must continue to work on improving standards and achieving some degree of trust between countries in the region as we move closer to 2015 when the ASEAN Economic Community will be established.