Thank you.
I'll be speaking on behalf of the Foodgrains Bank, and Stefan will be available for questions, if necessary.
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to appear. I'm so glad the committee is studying this important issue.
I work with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. We provide food assistance and we support livelihoods by working through partners in about 30 countries around the world. Most of our experience with COVID comes from partners in 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Our partners tell us that the impact of COVID on people’s health has not been as severe as we initially feared, due to quick action by many governments and other factors. But things could worsen without continued vigilance.
However, the knock-on effects of the pandemic and the government responses have been significant impacts on economies and on food security. In the first few months, we saw impacts across the food system. Farmers and traders lost income. Perishable food went to waste. Food prices rose. Many households struggled to buy enough. Also, food assistance programs were disrupted.
By now, some of these problems have been resolved. Our partner organizations have changed the way they work so that they can still do food assistance and still distribute food without increasing [Technical difficulty—Editor].