PHNOM PENH, 7 May 2009 (IRIN) – Coming only months after Asia’s food crisis, the economic crisis has renewed food insecurity among women and children as incomes dip, even though prices have fallen, with the World Bank predicting that Cambodia will be hardest hit among Southeast Asian countries.
As of 4 May, 1kg of rice cost 2,500 riel (US$0.61), against 3,200 riel ($0.78) a year earlier, according to the Economic Institute of Cambodia.
Declining food prices are creating difficulties for farmers who need to pay off debts, raising fears that urban workers returning to the countryside will not find work in the agricultural sector.
“Back-to-back effects of, first, the high food price crisis of last year and now the economic slowdown are likely to not only create categories of new poor… but also push into deeper food insecurity the already chronically poor,” Jean-Pierre de Margerie, Cambodia country representative for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN.
“Last year, a majority of poor households facing higher food prices had to resort to very damaging coping mechanisms such as contracting new debts or even cutting back on food consumption,” he added.
Acute malnutrition in poor urban children increased to 15.9 percent in 2008 from 9.6 percent in 2005, as poor families cut back on food expenditure, according to the 2008 Cambodia Anthropometrics Survey, released in February by the government.
More women are also forgoing proper nutrition and healthcare during pregnancy, raising the risk of death during childbirth, the UN said in its 8 April statement.
Five pregnant women die every day in labour, giving Cambodia one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Asia at 472 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the most recent government data from 2005.