This reliance on food imports left their food systems vulnerable to the vagaries of international prices, to the trade and aid polices of food-exporting, and donor countries, and to external political pressures. Cuba, for example, subjected to the continued US trade embargo, has faced severe problems since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as nearly 90 per cent of its trade was with the Soviet bloc. Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, and the Central American and Caribbean countries are particularly vulnerable to US pressures which might affect their food supplies or commodity markets. The region's food systems also increasingly depend on industrial technologies and inputs from the USA, Europe, and Japan. Food systems in the region are also becoming unsustainable ecologically.
Deforestation is rampant in areas unsuitable for other uses.
So too are soil erosion, water depletion, pollution of all kinds, loss of biodiversity, and other forms of environmental degradation. This is in addition to climatic vagaries, such as droughts and floods, which have always made food production precarious in many areas. The most urgent food-security issues in the region, however, relate to income distribution and severe poverty. This is almost a tautology. The poverty line is defined as being twice the value of this minimum food budget.