Guatemala: High Staple Food Prices Drive Up Hunger

[Derechos]

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 25, 2011 (IPS) - The rise in prices of corn, beans and other staple foods, driven up by damages to crops caused by extreme weather events, is making it even harder for the poor to afford a basic diet in Guatemala, which has the highest rate of child malnutrition in Latin America.

And although the government of social democratic President Álvaro Colom recently decreed a new rise in the minimum wage despite resistance from businesses, which threatened to lay off thousands of workers, the minimum wage still falls short of covering the cost of the basic basket of goods and services.

"The price of corn is higher than it has been in four years, at 125 quetzals (15.60 dollars) per quintal (100 lbs)," compared to 98 quetzals (12.20 dollars) in 2009, Gustavo García, with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS.

The cost of black beans has also gone up, from 422 quetzals (52.70 dollars) per quintal in 2009 to 458 quetzals (57.20 dollars) in 2010, FAO reported.

Corn and black beans form the main part of the subsistence diet of millions of families in rural Guatemala, where 72 percent of the country's poverty is concentrated, according to official statistics.

Half of Guatemala's 14 million people live in poverty, and 17 percent live in extreme poverty, according to U.N. figures, although unofficial estimates put the proportion much higher.

García explained that the drought that hurt a large share of the country's crops in 2009 was then compounded by flooding caused by heavy rains in 2010, which in turn caused outbreaks of pests that ruined much of what was left of the subsistence crops of poor rural families.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food reported that from January to September 2010, 72,000 hectares of crops were lost, including 44,000 hectares (1.5 quintals) of corn and 25,000 quintals of beans.

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The volatility of grain prices is not only a problem in Guatemala, but a global challenge that mainly affects the poor.

"Recent bouts of extreme price volatility in global agricultural markets portend rising and more frequent threats to world food security," says the December 2010 FAO report "Price Volatility in Agricultural Markets".

Extreme weather events, heavier reliance on international trade to meet food needs, and a growing demand for food commodities from other sectors, especially energy, are undermining food security, the report adds.



http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54233

[Peace Patriot]

1. "President Álvaro Colom recently decreed a new rise in the minimum wage...". Uh-oh.

"And although the government of social democratic President Álvaro Colom recently decreed a new rise in the minimum wage despite resistance from businesses, which threatened to lay off thousands of workers, the minimum wage still falls short of covering the cost of the basic basket of goods and services."

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The last Central American president who raised the minimum wage found himself being removed from the country at gunpoint, with a refueling stop at the U.S. military base, followed by the shilly-shallying of the Obama administration, death squad murders, torture, rape, beatings and imprisonment of leftists, and a U.S. State Department-John McCain-run martial law (s)election, which the rightwing, of course, 'won.'

Maybe Colom will avoid that fate by not having raised the minimum wage high enough to cover basic items like food. Starvation and deprivation are Wall Street policies. They are called "austerity" and they are essential to billion dollar bankster bailouts, million dollar bonuses and various war profiteer ventures. Starving children makes the stock market go up. It puts bullets in soldiers' guns. It drops bombs on "terrorists" and anyone else standing around. It buys yachts and third mansions. It is the happy talk at fat cat banquets. And if raising the minimum wage is bad, bad, bad, starving children is good, good, good, so it at least balances out. Colom stays. And they can get the expresso machine for the yacht somewhere else.

This is NOT to dis Colom! I'm sure he's doing the best that he can in a bad situation. He's one of the good guys. The real problem is that Guatemala is a big chunk of the U.S. "circle the wagons" region that is supposed to--according to one Honduran coup general--"prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States."*

Communism = a living wage, universal health care, well-fed children. Venezuela was just designated THE most equal country in Latin America, on income distribution, by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. Venezuela has cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70%. Those figures give Wall Street the willies--and it ain't the high octane lattes. It's the principle of the thing. "Chavez the dictator" has decreed an end to poverty, and he won't let anybody speak for greed, though many manage to speak for it anyway, in Venezuela--those "freedom fighters" at Globovision and Venevision, et al, who dominate the public airwaves--brave souls, only two mansions, no yacht, no expresso machine--who speak for greed every day, and get nothing but lip from Chavez for their courageous championing of free speech for the rich.

Honduras now stands like a sentry between "communism" to the south and U.S. -instigated "war on drugs" mayhem in Mexico to the north, with Guatemala in between--ruled a lily-livered liberal populist sitting where a fascist thug ought to be sitting, those awesome 'generales' who wouldn't blink at slaughtering a hundred thousand Mayan villagers for greed, as they did back in the glory days of St. Ronnie. Slit the bellies of pregnant women right down the middle in front of their husbands and families. Skinned people alive. Massacred whole villages, many whole villages. Didn't fuss about wages; just killed them all.

Colom is being closely watched, and one hint that he might raise the minimum wage to cover a food basket and he's on the plane.

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I've been thinking about the threat of fascist tyranny and how it lowers peoples expectations of government. That appears to be why the U.S. has allowed the return of the bloody dictator "Baby Doc" to Haiti. The U.S. is rigging the Haitian election to produce a "neo-liberal" president. They banned the Lavalas Party--the majority party of Haiti, party of the very popular former president Aristide, another elected president whom the U.S. "put on the plane." Aristide (in exile in South Africa) wants to return to Haiti and would certainly win the presidency back, in a fair election. The U.S. wants to deny Haiti this choice. So they got "Baby Doc" onto a plane and landed him at the U.S. military controlled Haitian airport, to everyone's mystification. Why is heinous criminal and bloody thief "Baby Doc" back in Haiti? It is a threat, is what it is. The threat of more of that horror, if Haitians insist on democracy, real choices, sovereignty and non-interference.

So, too, here in the U.S. If Democratic Party leaders don't do what our multinational corporate/war profiteer rulers dictate,--continue the Forever War, loot Social Security, etc.--it's back to the Bush Junta (easily accomplished with the ES&S/Diebold 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines all over the country) for even worse horrors. (--starting with this Scumbag Congress.)

False choices, enforced by thuggery.


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*(--quoted in a report on the coup by President Zelaya's government-in-exile.)

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for the news. Kicking.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: