Caribbean & Central America - March 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458

Another food crisis looming? The Pérez Molina government is warning of another food crisis as a result of the El Niño weather phenomenon. This follows a forecast made at the end of last month by the national institute of seismology, volcanology, meteorology, and hydrology (Insivumeh) of low rains for the months of May and June and a possible heat in July, potentially putting crops of basic food grains, the main diet of the population, at risk.  The departments most affected will be those in the Dry Corridor, which include Jalapa, Jutiapa, Zacapa, and El Progreso.

At the end of last month Luis Monterroso, head of the secretariat for food security (Sesan), warned that at least 40,800 families could be affected by food shortages this year. This adds to the current crisis affecting the agricultural sector caused by a coffee fungus (see sidebar). Monterroso said the government had earmarked Q$715m (US$92.3m) for a preventative plan for the sector which includes: support to agricultural households; the prevention and treatment of malnutrition through the use of therapeutic foods; the establishment of a nutritional alert system among other measures.  Monterroso did not say whether the latest threat of food crisis would affect President Pérez Molina’s pledge to reduce malnutrition by 10% during his four year term which began in January 2012. In his two-year balance sheet delivered in January 2014, Pérez Molina claimed that through his government’s main flagship social programme, Hambre Cero (Zero Hunger), the rate of deaths as a result of malnutrition dropped to 0.68% down from 2.2%. He also said that 106 children died in 2013 as a result of malnutrition, 28% less than in 2012.

• Coffee rust outbreak continues

As well as the impact of El Niño, Guatemala’s agriculture sector also continues to be affected by an outbreak of coffee rust fungus, which caused President Otto Pérez Molina to declare a national emergency in February 2013 [RC-13-02]. According to the latest figures (February 2014) from the International Coffee Organisation (ICO), coffee rust caused losses of 554,394 bags of coffee (of 60kg each) in the 2012-2013 harvest cycle in Guatemala, second only to Honduras (1.3m bags). According to the same figures, El Salvador reported losses of 322,102 bags, followed by Nicaragua (306,667 bags) and Costa Rica (73,600 bags). Total losses for Central America were estimated at around 2.7m bags, costing a total of US$500m.