ood at its core is a simple concept. It is the world’s literal lifeblood and it connects people both to each other and back to our planet. Yet, prior to the pandemic, food distribution had become so complicated it was no longer serving the very people who produce it.
In Ecuador a sustainable living income, or the amount of money each person in a household needs per day to live a dignified life, is $5.26 in the highlands and $5.36 on the coast. But many farmers in Ecuador make less than $4.00 daily, limiting their purchasing capacity of nutritious food, clean water, shelter, health care, and education.
The global pandemic was a wake-up call that our food system wasn't working. It showed that along with the work, sometimes our goals and expectations must change at a moment’s notice. What we have seen in the last year is that progress cannot only be easily thwarted, but easily reversed.
Real change takes perseverance. It also takes a lot of people to buy into a concept; presently one the international community continues to tout: build back better. To do this, we must work together to define and achieve what “better” really means.
Current food supply chains force producers into a position of dependence. Products pass through several intermediaries, with the first paying farmers a minimum price because they then go through at least three additional intermediaries. In Ecuador, to sell in a supermarket where most food is purchased, farmers must produce a high volume of product and deliver to one of only two national collection centers. If they are even able to reach the drop off location, farmers still don’t receive payment for their products for three months, making the task of reaching consumers highly unsustainable, if not unattainable.
Prior to the pandemic, local producers could sell their products directly to consumers at fairs and open-air marketplaces. However, once markets closed due to quarantine restrictions, only large supermarkets were allowed to stay open. This presented an additional obstacle for small-scale farmers to sell food that would quickly go to waste.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I received a call from the mayor of the Municipality of Quito, seeking help in keeping people at home by keeping them fed, particularly in four of the most vulnerable neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19.
The relationships we had built with local farmers, businesses and governments succeeded in bringing together the right people when we needed them most—taking a crisis and turning it into an opportunity.
With quarantine restrictions, farmers could no longer offer their produce in open-air marketplaces and fairs, threatening their only source of income. For everyone’s safety, community members were required to stay indoors creating yet another obstacle, and fresh produce began to stockpile, which would go to waste if it did not reach consumers.
To address immediate food insecurity and waste, we accelerated initiatives within the Future of Food program. Launched in 2019 and supported by Heifer International, the Future of Food program aggregates agroecological produce from local, small-scale farms and delivers it directly to families, aiming to enable thousands of small-scale farming families to reach a sustainable living income
Farmers assembled baskets with grains, fresh vegetables, and other staples, taking into account stringent sanitation measures at eight collection centers. Once baskets passed packaging and sanitation review, they were delivered directly to families by urban groups on bicycles or rented pick-up trucks throughout the capital. Food suppliers connected to food distributors created an interlocking food network improving food access. This one-of-a-kind naturally produced delivery food system helped Ecuador establish an infrastructure to continue reducing the income gap of smallholder farmers, in addition to bolstering solidarity amongst communities and strengthening the relationship between consumers and producers.
To date, prepared food baskets have reached more than 9,300 families in the cities of Quito, Cuenca, Santa Elena and Machala, Guayaquil. Heifer Ecuador supports a similar program on the Galapagos Island of San Cristóbal, a UNESCO Natural Heritage site, where sales during the pandemic reached approximately $10,000 USD monthly. The program overall generates nearly $52,000 monthly, and there are plans to continue expanding.
Building on the success of the distribution network, four farmers cooperatives of 400 mainly women small-scale farmers came together to create the first farmer-owned online marketplace. In addition to fresh produce, the online food market allows farmers to sell more than 60 regionally sourced products, including nutrient rich crab-shell based flour produced for balanced meals, instant banana flour, and flavored ice cream products promoting regional flavors such as ishpingo, cherimoya, mortiño, agave, uvilla, and wild blackberry that have never before been commercialized.
Still, working on the production side can only go so far. We must continue to educate consumers to understand that when they buy food, they are making a choice. They are choosing healthy food for their families, as well as who benefits from where they buy their food.
While a lot of progress has been made, food insecurity and malnutrition persist. Ecuador has Latin America’s second-highest percentage of chronic malnutrition in children under five. One in four children in the country is malnourished and the figures are even higher for Indigenous communities, with as many as 62% of children undernourished in subdivisions like Guano, where there is a large Indigenous population.
The COVID-19 Pandemic made the concept of food insecurity tangible to members of society who had not always confronted this issue at home. As countries around the world continue to suffer the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s World Food Day calls for global solidarity to help the most vulnerable people recover, make food systems more sustainable and resilient, and honor heroes like the farmers who grow the food we need.
Local farmers who were once overlooked by urban populations are now recognized as frontline works, heroes of society who are vital to a functioning food system. But to build back better, recognition is not enough. The food system we are building is one of abundance, which means it must continue to provide access to food—healthy, nutritious food—for everyone, especially poor people.
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To Truly Transform the Food System, Look to Ecuador
Photo by Isadora Romero/Heifer International.
October 16, 2021
On this World Food Day, to achieve food security for vulnerable populations, we look to Ecuador for what it means to truly transform the food system, writes Heifer International’s country director Rosa Rodriguez.
F
ood at its core is a simple concept. It is the world’s literal lifeblood and it connects people both to each other and back to our planet. Yet, prior to the pandemic, food distribution had become so complicated it was no longer serving the very people who produce it.
In Ecuador a sustainable living income, or the amount of money each person in a household needs per day to live a dignified life, is $5.26 in the highlands and $5.36 on the coast. But many farmers in Ecuador make less than $4.00 daily, limiting their purchasing capacity of nutritious food, clean water, shelter, health care, and education.
The global pandemic was a wake-up call that our food system wasn't working. It showed that along with the work, sometimes our goals and expectations must change at a moment’s notice. What we have seen in the last year is that progress cannot only be easily thwarted, but easily reversed.
Real change takes perseverance. It also takes a lot of people to buy into a concept; presently one the international community continues to tout: build back better. To do this, we must work together to define and achieve what “better” really means.
Current food supply chains force producers into a position of dependence. Products pass through several intermediaries, with the first paying farmers a minimum price because they then go through at least three additional intermediaries. In Ecuador, to sell in a supermarket where most food is purchased, farmers must produce a high volume of product and deliver to one of only two national collection centers. If they are even able to reach the drop off location, farmers still don’t receive payment for their products for three months, making the task of reaching consumers highly unsustainable, if not unattainable.
Prior to the pandemic, local producers could sell their products directly to consumers at fairs and open-air marketplaces. However, once markets closed due to quarantine restrictions, only large supermarkets were allowed to stay open. This presented an additional obstacle for small-scale farmers to sell food that would quickly go to waste.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I received a call from the mayor of the Municipality of Quito, seeking help in keeping people at home by keeping them fed, particularly in four of the most vulnerable neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19.
The relationships we had built with local farmers, businesses and governments succeeded in bringing together the right people when we needed them most—taking a crisis and turning it into an opportunity.
With quarantine restrictions, farmers could no longer offer their produce in open-air marketplaces and fairs, threatening their only source of income. For everyone’s safety, community members were required to stay indoors creating yet another obstacle, and fresh produce began to stockpile, which would go to waste if it did not reach consumers.
To address immediate food insecurity and waste, we accelerated initiatives within the Future of Food program. Launched in 2019 and supported by Heifer International, the Future of Food program aggregates agroecological produce from local, small-scale farms and delivers it directly to families, aiming to enable thousands of small-scale farming families to reach a sustainable living income
Farmers assembled baskets with grains, fresh vegetables, and other staples, taking into account stringent sanitation measures at eight collection centers. Once baskets passed packaging and sanitation review, they were delivered directly to families by urban groups on bicycles or rented pick-up trucks throughout the capital. Food suppliers connected to food distributors created an interlocking food network improving food access. This one-of-a-kind naturally produced delivery food system helped Ecuador establish an infrastructure to continue reducing the income gap of smallholder farmers, in addition to bolstering solidarity amongst communities and strengthening the relationship between consumers and producers.
To date, prepared food baskets have reached more than 9,300 families in the cities of Quito, Cuenca, Santa Elena and Machala, Guayaquil. Heifer Ecuador supports a similar program on the Galapagos Island of San Cristóbal, a UNESCO Natural Heritage site, where sales during the pandemic reached approximately $10,000 USD monthly. The program overall generates nearly $52,000 monthly, and there are plans to continue expanding.
Building on the success of the distribution network, four farmers cooperatives of 400 mainly women small-scale farmers came together to create the first farmer-owned online marketplace. In addition to fresh produce, the online food market allows farmers to sell more than 60 regionally sourced products, including nutrient rich crab-shell based flour produced for balanced meals, instant banana flour, and flavored ice cream products promoting regional flavors such as ishpingo, cherimoya, mortiño, agave, uvilla, and wild blackberry that have never before been commercialized.
Still, working on the production side can only go so far. We must continue to educate consumers to understand that when they buy food, they are making a choice. They are choosing healthy food for their families, as well as who benefits from where they buy their food.
While a lot of progress has been made, food insecurity and malnutrition persist. Ecuador has Latin America’s second-highest percentage of chronic malnutrition in children under five. One in four children in the country is malnourished and the figures are even higher for Indigenous communities, with as many as 62% of children undernourished in subdivisions like Guano, where there is a large Indigenous population.
The COVID-19 Pandemic made the concept of food insecurity tangible to members of society who had not always confronted this issue at home. As countries around the world continue to suffer the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s World Food Day calls for global solidarity to help the most vulnerable people recover, make food systems more sustainable and resilient, and honor heroes like the farmers who grow the food we need.
Local farmers who were once overlooked by urban populations are now recognized as frontline works, heroes of society who are vital to a functioning food system. But to build back better, recognition is not enough. The food system we are building is one of abundance, which means it must continue to provide access to food—healthy, nutritious food—for everyone, especially poor people.
