El Salvador

Food Crisis in El Salvador
BBC, August 18, 2001

The UN World Food Programme has begun distributing food in El Salvador in response to a growing food crisis caused by the worst drought to hit Central America in recent years. An estimated 1.4 million poor farmers in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala have lost thousands of hectares of basic crops due to nearly three months of drought that began at the height of the planting season. Of those affected, around three quarters of a million people are reported to be in urgent need of food supplies. The WFP has extended its distribution operations into four provinces of eastern El Salvador, where the government declared a state of emergency earlier this month. Around 2,000 tonnes of corn, beans and oil are being handed out to around 20,000 peasant families who are facing a critical situation, having lost their entire year's crops. The UN organisation hopes to deliver to around 1,000 families a day. But officials have admitted that supplies will not last more than a month. With nothing to fall back on until the next harvest at the end of the year, many families are now beginning to sell off their few possessions in order to buy something to eat.

There is concern that the food crisis here could also force farmers to abandon the land and head for the already overcrowded cities. It is the same story across Central America, which is still reeling from a succession of natural disasters, starting with droughts from El Nino in 1997 and floods from Hurricane Mitch a year later. Aid workers have said that food supplies to the needy here in El Salvador have been limited because stocks are already depleted after the massive earthquakes that hit the country in January and February of this year. Some weather forecasters are predicting that sporadic storms may hit the region in the next few days from Tropical Storm Chantal, which is heading for the area. But experts say that any rain now will have come too late to save the first major crop of the year for Central America's rural poor.