President Alberto Fernández and the Minister of Social Development of the Nation, Juan Zabaleta, announced a 50% increase in the Food Benefit, which is received by 2.4 million main beneficiaries and reaches 4.1 million people.
The increase, which will be charged in the first days of May, corresponds to the April payment and will be deposited in the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) account, official sources reported.
The new amounts will remain at $9,000 for families with a son or daughter up to 14 years of age or with a disability; $13,500 in the case of families that have two sons or daughters in the same age group or with disabilities; $9,000 for those receiving the pregnancy allowance; and $18,000 in the case of families with three or more children under fourteen years of age.
The Food Card is an initiative of the national government as part of the Argentina Plan against Hunger that, since January 2020, seeks to guarantee Argentine families access to the basic food basket.
The announcement was made within the framework of the tour of the President with the official through the “Incuba Brown” Productive Development Center, located in the Buenos Aires municipality of Almirante Brown.
There, Fernández and Zabaleta supervised the delivery of instruments to entrepreneurs, within the national program “Bank of Machinery, Tools and Materials for the Social Emergency.”
“I am very pleased that today we are dedicating this plan that reaches 60,000 entrepreneurs, which represents an investment of 5 billion pesos and which provides instruments to be able to grow in our own or cooperative enterprises,” the president remarked.
The President highlighted the “commitment” of the national government to the federal producer markets: “We are determined not only for Argentina to grow, but also to achieve a more egalitarian development,” he stressed.
The President toured the Incuba Brown Productive Development Center, located in Burzaco, which has a space for the sale of products from different areas of local entrepreneurs supported by the Tool Bank, in addition to having a headquarters of the Federal Itinerant Market.
There he spoke with the vendors and received gifts with the different merchandise that are made with the support of the national government.
Within the production lines are pottery, communication, textiles and the production of audiovisual content. They all offer a job alternative for young people, between 18 and 30 years old, so that they are trained in a trade, can produce and market it.
Through the Tool Bank, the State provided the different municipal proposals with ceramic kilns, sewing machines, cutting tables, as well as computers, printers, tape recorders and LED lights for the audiovisual production company.
“We continue to expand. We know that problems that are not recognized cannot be resolved,” Zabaleta said during the tour.
For the official, “this is the path that every day, and with great firmness, without threats, makes us stand by the side of every Argentine and every Argentine.”
“This important phenomenon that is the popular economy must be strengthened and institutionalized,” said Zabaleta, adding: “The popular economy is work and it is moving,” he encouraged.
During the act, in which the interim municipal mayor, Juan José Fabiani, and the national deputy Daniel Menéndez also participated, the president supervised the delivery of the equipment and instruments, in person and virtually, to workers of the Almirante Brown party and of the province of Santa Cruz, and will also make contact with entrepreneurs from Mendoza and Salta.
The event was also attended, via videoconference, by the Governor of Santa Cruz, Alicia Kirchner, who thanked and greeted the President, and also stressed the importance of national support for cooperatives in the Patagonian province.
Alicia Kirchner stressed that “there are 300 enterprises with a very important investment by the Nation and it means a really much needed contribution.”
The initiative aims to make visible the federal scope of the program aimed at entrepreneurs in the textile, production, gastronomy and construction sectors. and was attended by 120 beneficiaries via zoom.
In addition, a second Bank of the national program was signed for an investment of 90 million, which will be specifically destined for the textile and gastronomic sectors.
The Food Card has been granted since January 2020 to mothers or fathers with sons and daughters up to 14 years of age who receive the Universal Child Allowance (AUH), pregnant women from the third month who receive AUH, people with disabilities who receive AUH and mothers with more than 7 children.
The objective is that this sector can access the basic food basket.
