Venezuela’s hunger crisis is for real

More and more, Raffalli is finding households pursuing the kind of emergency adaptation strategies usually associated with famines in war-torn  countries. Sixty-three percent report turning to “unusual foods,” 70 percent report that they’ve stopped consuming types of food they consider important, and 85 percent of families in at-risk areas report they are eating less. In 57 percent of households in at-risk areas, someone in the family has reduced essential food intake so others could eat. Forty-four percent report going one whole day without eating at all. Overall, 34 percent of families are now resorting to at least one emergency coping strategy — a sign of acute food insecurity– such as selling productive assets to buy food, reducing essential expenditures, eating from garbage bins, sending a child to beg for food, or sending a family member to live elsewhere to relieve pressure on food stocks. More…