epiac1216 (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} epiac1216) wrote,@ 2008-05-03 14:32:00 |
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| Current location: | Panama City, Panama |
| Current mood: |  worried |
| Current music: | Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Richard Clayderman |
| Entry tags: | news |
Soaring Food Prices and Food Scarcity Reaches Panama
The latest story that has been covered by all the major media players is the soaring food prices and the scarcity of food around the globe.
The United Nations Food Program has described soaring food prices as a “silent tsunami” that threatens to plunge more than 100 million people from every continent into poverty. Protests, strikes and riots have erupted in developing countries around the world after dramatic rises in the prices of wheat, rice, corn, oils and other essential foods that have made it difficult for poor people to make ends meet.
Young children, who can face life-long health problems from undernourishment, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers, are among the most vulnerable groups in developing countries, where food crises also stand to trigger political unrest.
Panama is also a victim of this international malaise. In this small tropical country located in Central America, food prices keep rising. In March, the average cost of the basic food basket rose to $246.79, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Economic and Finance (MEF).
The prices of food and beverage in Panama increased by 15 percent in the one-year period from March 2007 to March 2008.The increment is accredited mainly to a monthly increase in the price of big-eye scad, a fish known locally as “cojinúa” (10.4 percent); potatoes (21.6 percent); tomatoes (9.2 percent); oil (7.2 percent); salt (4.3 percent) and bananas (5.1 percent). One of the most price-sensitive foods, bread, has shown an average annual increase of 19 percent, and it’s anticipated to escalate even higher.
Giacomo Tamburrelli, President of the Panama Association of Bakeries, reported that his group of 138 businesses will buy 20 containers of flour, or roughly 1.1 million pounds, in order to maintain bread current prices. The association will also buy oil, leavening agents, margarine, butter, and shortening in an effort to restrain from increasing the price of bread and other flour-related products.
The Panama government has been forced to take measures to dampen the rise in food prices resulting in part from a world food crisis, which has left some countries, including neighboring Nicaragua, in a state of scarcity and social turmoil.
The Panama Minister of Agriculture, announced the creation of a Central American regional fund to boost the production of basic grains and design a policy of buying large quantities of agricultural inputs so as to keep production costs as low as possible.
Producers associations agree that Panama can increase production. They are already exercising an enormous effort to raise the production of milk and meat. But they wonder who’s going to buy at such high prices.
Panama’s government officials have boasted that the local economy has been growing at double digits for the last few years; the problem is that you can’t eat money. As a short term solution, Panama has to grow its own food, and the Panama government has to guarantee that the basic-food-basket products reach the poor people at subsidized prices. Failure to do so would end in an unpredictable violent social unrest. The writing is on the wall.
People are starving in Ethiopia? Stop trying to change the subject!
