bogota: city without hunger?
cansat/friends of the earth
colombia
The great variety and abundance of food
crops cultivated year-round by Colombian
farmers are proof of the country's
diversity. This richness of ecosystems is
matched by the diverse cultures found in
the country, including indigenous, black
and mestizo peoples, and varied culinary
traditions. However, despite this wealth of
diversity, the imposition of the current
economic and development model has led not
only to the impoverishment of the
population but to the loss of food security
and food sovereignty.
A clear example is provided in Bogotá,
Colombia 's capital city, where 3 million
people out of a total population of 8
million live in poverty, and 25 percent of
the city's children under seven are
malnourished. Thousands of families move
into Bogotá each year, displaced from their
homes by the social and armed conflict that
has bled the country for decades.
corporate response
This is why the citizens of Bogotá
welcomed Mr. Luis Eduardo Garzón as the new
mayor, and were positive about his proposed
‘Bogotá without Hunger' program, which
recognizes the urgency and scale of hunger,
exclusion and poverty in the city. He
called for the introduction of nutritional
supplements and for school and community
canteens, food banks and a network of food
stores and cooperatives to be established.
The program had enthusiastic responses from
many, including universities, businesses
and the Chamber of Commerce. Huge
supermarket chains, including transnational
corporations like Carrefour, began to
donate meals and cash for the program, and
several stores “adopted” community canteens
around the city and supplied them with
food.
However, the program and its vision have
generated a lot of criticism from various
social and environmental movements. Hunger
and poverty are attributed to laziness and
lack of education, and the proposed
solution of distributing corporate profits
among the poor is purely economic. Critics
maintain that the project's approach to
hunger is superficial, and that the
underlying causes of hunger and ways to
create lasting food security are not
addressed.
Farmers and environmentalists are also
opposed to the program, as it ignores the
role of the local producer in dealing with
hunger and poverty. All of the food for the
program is imported, in order to reduce
costs. These ‘donations' of tons of food by
large supermarkets are thus contributing to
the further consolidation of their control
over national and global food markets.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers are
involved in supplying food for the people
of Colombia , and this
commercially-oriented scheme deals them a
harsh blow from which they might not
recover.
grassroots
alternatives
Fortunately, a variety of farmers'
organizations in Colombia are developing
important food sovereignty initiatives such
as the recovery of traditional seeds,
agro-ecological cultivation practices, seed
exchanges, diversification of crops,
establishment of local markets and the
reintroduction of diverse traditional
recipes. Friends of the Earth Colombia has
long supported these projects, including
one carried out by a farmers' organization
in the province of Santander to strengthen
food sovereignty in that region.
