By Lucila Sigal and Javier Corbalan
BUENOS AIRES/SALTA, Argentina (Reuters) - In Argentina's poor barrios a food emergency is taking hold as poverty rises, with malnutrition on the increase and medics treating children for eye diseases and even scurvy linked to a vitamin-deficient diet.
Years of recessions and high inflation in the resource-rich South American nation have left over half the population in poverty, including around seven in 10 children.
Food insecurity has risen sharply in recent years, and is now being aggravated by a tough austerity campaign under libertarian President Javier Milei, whose new government has slashed billions of dollars of spending as part of a "zero deficit" plan to right the embattled economy.
Official data last week showed that poverty hit 53% in the first half of the year, up from around 42% at the end of last year. Some 18% of people are in extreme poverty, meaning their household incomes don't cover the cost of the basic food basket.
"There are times when I don't have enough food to feed (my children)," said Silvina Rizo, a mother of three in a shantytown on the outskirts of Salta in Argentina's mountainous north.
Rizo said she now cooks with wood because she cannot afford gas for the stove. Her youngest daughter is terrified of the wind and rain that rattle the tin roof and walls made of plastic bags.
"When it rains, the neighborhood floods. But where am I going to go?" said Rizo. "I don't have anywhere to go with my children. Rent is so expensive."
The number of Argentines facing moderate-to-severe food insecurity has almost doubled to 36% over the last seven years, a United Nations report said this year. A million and a half kids miss a meal each day and are eating fewer nutritious foods like meats and vegetables that have become more costly.
"We are seeing cases of scurvy, cases of eye injuries due to Vitamin A deficiency, with corneal injuries," said Norma Piazza, a pediatrician specializing in nutrition.
"These things existed in Central America, Africa, Asia, but we had never seen patients here who had eye lesions due to a lack of vitamin A."
She said some kids were being admitted with neurological issues and convulsions where the only underlying pathology was deficiency of vitamins like B12, indicating a lack of meat in a country that has long prided itself on its beef-rich diet.
The Milei government, which took power in December 2023, has recognized a "food emergency". It says it has responded with increased payouts on certain welfare subsidies like universal child allowance and food cards.
"In the face of the food emergency, our priority is for people to receive assistance with direct transfers, which puts money in people's pockets," the Secretariat of Childhood, Adolescence and Family said in written comments to Reuters.
The government also says there are signs the worst is over. Data from the Catholic University of Argentina suggest poverty peaked at the start of the year and has improved since. Inflation is slowing though remains in the triple digits on an annual basis.
The presidency office said last week that high poverty levels were "horrendous" and it was doing all it could to turn around the situation that it blames on decades of poor economic management and over-spending by mainstream political parties.
'AID COMPLETELY STOPPED'
Milei, a political outsider and former economic pundit, often campaigned brandishing a chainsaw as a crude illustration of his plans to slash the size of the state.
His government has withdrawn funding for some soup kitchens, which it says are inefficient or even scams, drawing criticism from aid groups and religious bodies who say they play a crucial role ensuring the poorest are fed. Many have closed or had to reduce meals.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a report in September it was concerned food insecurity had "increased alarmingly" in Argentina in recent years. It cited the "negative impact on children" of the cuts to community kitchens.
"From December last year, aid from the national government completely stopped," said priest Adrian Bennardis in Villa Soldati, an impoverished Buenos Aires neighborhood. "It breaks my heart to know that out of 10 kids, seven are below the poverty line... and that a part of society does not want to see it."
Many Argentines still support Milei's tough medicine reforms after years of crisis. But his approval numbers have started to slip and some of those suffering are resentful. Angel Arce, 32, is out of work and angry, saying he has had to send his son to live with relatives because he cannot afford to look after him.
"With this president everything went downhill. The lower class people don't get anything any more, the soup kitchens neither," he said. "I want to be with my son and I can't."
MORE RICE, LESS MEAT
In a soup kitchen in Villa Soldati, Maria Benitez Osorio, 36, said demand for the food she serves was rising but funding had fallen, meaning the quality of meals was "deteriorating."
"What we try to do is serve more rice and noodles, which is what we have the most of. Meat and chicken in general are what we have the least," she said, stirring a huge stew that she was serving to neighbors crowding the door on a cold spring day.
In Villa Fiorito, the hardscrabble neighborhood where soccer star Diego Maradona was born, 32-year-old Cynthia suffers from malnutrition, aggravated by the fact that she is missing a kidney and a lung.
"I don't have enough food," she said from her bed under a perforated metal roof where water drips when it rains. She shares the room with her two children, mother and sister. "The soup kitchen said they can only give food one day a week."
Diets that lack nutrients like zinc and certain vitamins can lead to stunted growth and higher chance of disease, while cheaper carbohydrates are linked to higher instances of obesity, on the rise in Argentina.
"The quality of the food poor children in Argentina are having is clearly deteriorating," said Sergio Britos, nutritionist and director of Argentina's Center for Studies on Food Policies and Economics.
Some 10% of Argentine under-5s were malnourished, he said, a figure that has crept up in recent years as food prices have risen.
Susana De Grandis, a pediatrician specializing in child nutrition in central Cordoba province, said cases of illnesses like eye diseases and scurvy linked to poor diets were a "warning" sign.
"It had been many years since we saw scurvy, perhaps decades. It is exceptional that one sees illnesses in Argentina that are related to vitamin deficiency," she said.
"We take these cases as markers of a serious situation because we hadn't seen them before."