BOGOTA (AlertNet) - A sharp drop in remittance payments is partly to blame for the rising numbers of people without enough food in Guatemala, as the Central American country struggles to stave off mass hunger, says the United Nations children's fund, UNICEF.
Over 50 children have died of chronic malnutrition this year, according to official figures.
Across the country, the government estimates 54,000 families are already suffering from hunger, while 400,000 others are at risk of running out of food.
Around half of GuatemalaÂ?s population of 13.3 million lives in poverty and relies on remittance payments, money sent home by migrant workers to relatives, to make ends meet and to pay for basic groceries.
But as thousands of migrants working in the United States have lost their jobs due to the global economic crisis, it has become even harder for their families to buy food at a time of rising food prices.
The food crisis has been brought on by a prolonged severe drought that has wiped out harvests in seven of the countryÂ?s 22 provinces, causing a spike in food prices.
Â?GuatemalaÂ?s food crisis is part of the global economic crisis and resulting increased unemployment,Â? Adriano Gonzalez, Guatemala country representative for UNICEF, told AlertNet by phone from the capital, Guatemala City.
Â?People have less money and so are buying less food.Â?
GuatemalaÂ?s poor, the majority subsistence farmers and indigenous people living in rural areas, are struggling to afford staple foods, such as maize and beans, at local markets.
Falling remittance flows, along with other effects of the global downturn, including reduced exports, foreign investment and tourism revenues, have pushed the countryÂ?s finances deeper into the red.
The Guatemalan government has been forced to spend less on food imports and says it lacks funds to subsidise basic foods.
"We have food, what we don't have are the financial resources to allow the people affected to buy the available foodstuffs," President Alvaro Colom said last week in a televised address last week as he declared a Â?state of public calamityÂ? to tackle the food crisis and mobilise foreign aid.
He added that his government would not get lost in a debate on technical terms as to whether or not the country was facing famine.
Withered tall maize plants dot the scorched Guatemalan countryside.
Across the country, hospitals are seeing more children with bloated bellies, hair loss, and skin infections, the tell tale signs of hunger.
Â?Women and children have been caught in the vortex of this hunger crisis and are in a desperate struggle for survival,Â? U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) executive director Josette Sheeran said in a recent statement.
The hardest-hit communities are living in the so-called dry corridor in the eastern part of the country that borders El Salvador and Honduras, a region plagued by irregular rainfall and poverty.
Food aid, targeting pregnant and breast-feeding women, has started to reach the most affected communities.
The WFP is sending nutritional biscuits and other foods. As part of its initial emergency response, the government has earmarked $7.5 million.
But aid agencies say there is a lack of funds adequately to tackle GuatemalaÂ?s food crisis. The WFP says there is only enough money to provide food aid to tens of thousands of families until the end of this month.
More Guatemalans will face hunger, aid agencies warn.
Â?ItÂ?s serious. Children are already dying and many more are at risk of dying of hunger if the drought continues and the next harvest due in October fails too,Â? said UNICEFÂ?s Gonzalez. Â?ThereÂ?s not enough rain at the moment to guarantee the next harvest.Â?
Â?Food shortages are likely to worsen, with a 60 to 80 percent loss of crops expected in the upcoming harvest in some of GuatemalaÂ?s provinces, which would put even more households at very high risk of becoming food insecure,Â? a recent WFP report said.
This is not the first time the Central American nation has faced acute food shortages caused by bad weather.
The situation is exacerbated by the Â?countryÂ?s fundamental problem of malnutrition,Â? says UNICEF.
Â?Chronic malnutrition is already prevalent among many children in Guatemala, which makes them even more susceptible to diseases and dying of hunger,Â? said Gonzalez.
Malnutrition, caused by poverty, poor sanitation and a lack of drinking water, is the most urgent health problem facing Guatemala today.
One in two children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, the highest rate in Latin America and the fourth highest rate in the world, says UNICEF.
It is a problem aid agencies, the media and rights groups have raised over the years. On an official visit to Guatemala earlier this month, Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, called on the government to provide sustainable and transparent strategies to tackle the problem.
There is an urgent need to focus on long-term solutions to reduce high malnutrition rates, says UNICEF, which is encouraging women to breast-feed for at least up to six months.
Gonzalez said: Â?Promoting breast-feeding is the best way to ensure babies are well fed and avoid malnutrition.Â?
The food crisis has also once again thrown the spotlight on ingrained problems in Guatemalan agriculture. Swathes of fertile land are taken over for exports, such as coffee, sugar and oil palm plantations.
Critics of the government say it has failed to implement agricultural development projects such as water irrigation schemes for small farmers. They also point to a dire lack of rural reform.
The long standing problem of unequal land distribution and ill-defined land rights, means much of the countryÂ?s arable land remains in the hands of the rich elite.
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