Latin America

Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts) Thu Oct 23, 2014, 01:43 PM Oct 2014

Venezuela fails to meet food security criteria

http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/141018/venezuela-fails-to-meet-food-security-criteria

The Venezuelan government's efforts to ensure food security and sovereignty have not borne any fruits, even though in 2008 the Executive Office enacted a law laying the foundations and principles to reach that goal, which has been postponed more than once and has now been re-established for 2019, asserted Carlos Machado Allison, professor at the Institute of Higher Education in Business Administration (IESA).

In Venezuela, food security has been based on a massive imports policy, for which millions of dollars are allocated annually to ensure supply, which currently seems insufficient.

Current high inflation and shortage in the country are some of the factors going against the principle of food security.

"Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life," the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has established.

Machado Allison claims that "all elements of food security are at risk." According to the FAO, a country has to meet four elements to achieve food security: availability of food, whether through local production or imports; access to food, meaning that people have enough resources to buy it; biological utilization of nutritious foods; and stability, which allows appropriate access to food at all times.