Managua - The presidents of Venezuela and Central American countries are set to meet Wednesday in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua to seek government solutions to the current food scarcity in the region. According to the official programme of the meeting on food "sovereignty" and security made public Monday in Managua, it will be opened by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, and Antonio Saca of El Salvador plan to attend, and Nicaraguan authorities also expected the leaders of Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Belize to take part in the meeting.
"We expect the meeting to adopt extremely important resolutions, and particularly deals that allow us to implement all these proposals to guarantee that our peoples produce and consume their own foodstuffs," said Nicaraguan presidential spokeswoman and first lady Rosario Murillo.
Authorities of several international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank have warned that the rise in food prices is likely to set back development efforts and increase poverty and instability.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that 100 million people around the world could be affected by food scarcity.
Indeed, Honduras and Haiti, as well as countries as far away as Egypt and Somalia, have suffered riots in recent months over the rising price of foodstuffs. Some countries have placed limit on the exports of rice and other foodstuffs, including the Argentina government in recent months.
The use of crops like corn to produce biofuels and the use of land previously devoted to food production also to produce raw materials to make biofuels, have been blamed for at least a portion of the increase in the price of foodstuffs.
However, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - whose country leads the global production of ethanol alongside the United States - has insisted that the key to the crisis lies elsewhere.
"What is happening in the world is that you have more poor people who eat. There are more Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians who eat. And food production is not growing proportionately to demand," Lula said.
According to the Brazilian president, food scarcity will end as soon as the world adjusts to provide foodstuffs in the higher numbers currently required.
Net importers of foodstuffs like the countries in Central America are bracing themselves for a hard time. Their governments are seeking to increase food production, in some cases - notably the left-wing government of Nicaragua - with the help of oil-rich Venezuela.
