‘Shameful’: Minagricultura talks about food insecurity in the country

Colombia have a structural problem of food insecurity associated with poverty more than with the supply of food and there are places where people cannot have three meals a day, he affirms the Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia López Montaño,

(See: Food insecurity hits more than 10 million in Latin America).

The official described as “shameful” that situation and commented that the country is for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) one of upper middle income,

According to a report published last January by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 7.3 million people in Colombia, out of a total population of 50 million, suffer from food insecurity.

(See: Tax reform: food that will be taxed in 2023).

“It is a shame. It is not justified that a country like us, with a very acceptable economic behavior, which for the OECD is an upper-middle-income country, has these levels of food insecurity. We have cities like Barranquilla, where, at times, it has reached the point where half of its population does not have three meals a day.“, assured the minister in an interview with the agency EFE.

López cited the situation in the Department of La Guajira, where, according to the National Institute of Health, 50 children under the age of five died from malnutrition in the first nine months of this year, a problem that has been repeated for decades.

(See: The products that hit the pocket of households the most this year).

“Look at La Guajira. How many years have we been hearing, hearing that children are constantly dying of starvation? How long have we been complaining about the food plan for the educational system?he wonders.

According to Lopez, “Colombia has a structural problem of food insecurity that we have to address“in the new government, but that is”is far from resolvedbecause, among other things, worsened during the covid-19 pandemic.

(See: Mud, rats and the ‘hunger foods’ people eat for a living).

“To be clear, in Colombia food security in general has not been a matter of food supply, it is a matter of poverty, it is a matter of lack of income” because the country has conditions to produce food all year round and in different thermal floors.

The minister explained that the high inflation of this year, which in the interannual data up to November stood at 12.53%, is added the rainy season, the strongest in 40 years, which have made “food prices are out of whack, and this undoubtedly has an impact on levels of food insecurity“.

EFE