CONFRAS forecasts less cultivated area and less food for El Salvador this year

(PUBLICADO ORIGINALMENTE POR DIARIO CO-LATINO)

The Confederation of Federations of the Salvadoran Agrarian Reform (CONFRAS) considers that this year there will be a decrease in the national production of basic grains and vegetables, given the increased cost of inputs for agricultural production and little government support. They say that this, in turn, will generate more unemployment, poverty, hunger and greater emigration of the rural population.

“The increase in prices of agricultural inputs and gas is generating a drop in productivity and reduction in cultivated areas. If this problem is not solved, there will be an expanded food crisis. With the increase in the cost of living in the country during 2022, poverty rates, which have been increasing since 2020, will skyrocket even more” said Alejandra Góchez, from the CONFRAS board of directors.

She denounced the shelving of the proposal for a Food Sovereignty Law, whose objective is for the State to promote a new model of food production, which is sustainable and non-dependent, to guarantee the population the right to accessible, sufficient, healthy and quality food. The Legislative Assembly, controlled by Nayib Bukele, shelved the proposal.

Likewise, she pointed out that the government’s policy of importing basic foods competes with national production. During the COVID-19 pandemic hundreds of thousands of tons of food were imported and that bankrupted the producers of basic grains and national milk.

“Agricultural cooperatives, small and medium-sized producers of basic grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, dairy products and honey, are the ones that supply the national demand for basic foods and are at the same time the ones who suffer the most from the crisis, because most of them do not control the market, are not elegible for credit and they do not have the protection of the State”, affirmed Góchez.

Meanwhile, the president of CONFRAS, Ángel Coto, explained that Salvadoran families are affected by the rise in prices of the basic food basket. According to the General Directorate of Statistics and Censuses (DIGESTYC), in one year the basic urban basket increased by $14.19, reaching a cost of $213.43; while, the rural basket increased $15.45. In January 2021 it cost $141.68 and January 2022 closed with $157.13.

He stated that the food of 6.5 million salvadorans depends on the agricultural sector, the raw materials of agro-industries and processed food industries, but if agriculture weakens there will be scarcity and more dependence on imported food, which is more expensive and harvested using uncertain methods.

Coto stressed that the current government has reduced the support for agriculture, by eliminating the programs of Family Farming, Family Aquaculture in Municipalities of Poverty, Development and Rural Modernization and Community Care. In the 2022 budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock there is a decrease of 4 million agricultural packages (seeds and fertilizer), which implies a reduction of 60 thousand less packages for this year.

CONFRAS lamented the legal insecurity experienced by thousands of farmers, such as those from the Normandía and Escuintla cooperatives, who are threatened with the eviction of more than 840 blocks of land (540 Hectares) by businessmen and oligarchs; as well as the arrests of community leaders at Hacienda La Labor, in Ahuachapán.

Another concern is the implementation of the “Eminent Property Law for Municipal and Institutional Works“, in force since December 1, 2021, which threatens to expropriate land considered by the government to be of “public utility”.

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