31 May 2011 | News | Food Sovereignty
Food as a Public Good
Salvadorean peasants demand passing of Food Sovereignty bill they submitted in 2008
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The Salvadorean government implemented a program to encourage family farming with economic resources from abroad.
Mauricio Vanegas, member of the National Workers’ Council- La Via Campesina (CNTC), said this was an important tool to fight hunger in the countryside. It is a mitigating measure aimed at improving the situation of the country’s most impoverished sectors.
However, the implementation of the government’s program has shown some weaknesses, according to the peasant organizations. Vanegas says one of the weak aspects of these policies is the promotion of agribusiness.
“It consists of a benefit to what in South America is known as agribusiness, which is controlled by big businessmen”, said the CNTC’s spokesperson in an interview with La Voz de los Movimientos.
Meanwhile, the peasant leader said that all the program funds are co-managed under an agreement signed by the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Inter-American Institute of Cooperation for Agriculture.
“This program becomes weak because transnational corporations and the international cooperation take all the money that should be invested in the country, while national organizations are not strengthened”.
Vanegas thinks that the initiative has not been useful to consolidate the work of the National Frong of Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry Technology (Cesta), which was one of the promises of the Executive Branch.
The government of El Salvador decided that the family farming program is focused on developing ten productive chains: basic grains, honey, aquaculture, fruit, livestock, horticulture, coffee, cacao, crafts and rural community tourism.
Oscar Recinos, another CNTC leader demanded on La Voz de los Movimientos, the passing of the Food Sovereignty Law that the peasant organizations submitted in 2008, but which has seen no response so far.
The bill defines food as a social and public good; it forces the State to prioritize people’s food through national production and it proposes the Ministry of Public Health should address malnutrition as one of the problems of the Salvadorean countryside.
