consumer

Government has food relief plan

Mida presented a plan yesterday aimed at helping agricultural producers and consumers while food prices keep rising.

At least one group representing local growers argues that the government's proposal will not solve the problem.

The Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario (Mida) announced yesterday the measures it will take to combat the scarcity and high cost of food.

The national strategy will function in concert with an emergency food plan embraced by all the countries of Central America and that is aimed at increasing the regional production of maize, rice, and beans.

Among other things, the plan calls for making massive purchases of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, in order to lower local farmers' production costs; better financing for the agricultural sector through the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica; the implementation of a family agriculture program financed in part by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which will provide families living in extreme poverty with seeds, inputs, and tools for producing food; the reactivation of the Unión de Países Exportadores del Banano; the development of biofuels from palm nuts instead of grains, in order not to threaten the global food supply; and lower tariffs.

"Work is already underway on the draft decree on the reduction of tariffs. That will be presented to the Gabinete very soon," said ministro de Desarrollo Agropecuario, Guillermo Salazar.

Local producers, however, don't think that the government's importing agricultural inputs at low prices—subsidies, in effect--- is the best response to the food crisis.

At a meeting called yesterday by the Mida, producers and supermarket representatives confronted the issue, with both sides keeping their distance from the government plan.

Vegetable growers and pig farmers laid the blame for high prices on merchants.

The Comunidad Productora de Tierras Altas said that supermarkets are selling products for 80 cents more than they cost in the field. "We can't cut our prices any more because they are almost at the level of our cost of production," said Virgilia Saldaña, the organization's president.

The national association of pig farmers added its voice to the vegetable growers protest, saying that the supermarkets are buying pork at 75 cents a pound and selling it to consumers for $1.50.

Alexander Araúz, president of the Asociación de Productores de Arroz de Chiriquí (Apach), declared that it has become extremely difficult to grow rice and maintain the price. In addition, he said that the government's proposal to import inputs wouldn't solve the problem of increasing food prices if it didn't give the producer the financial means to acquire them. "The rising cost of food is a global problem, but even so Panamanian producers's prices are below international levels," he emphasized.