Bolivia considers new law to improve food security

Bolivian government is considering putting more money into making the country more food secure. 25 years ago most of what Bolivia ate was grown within its borders, now they import most of their food. Some features of the law include preserving Bolivia's agricultural diversity and developing its own seeds.

From the Guardian, writer Mattia Cabitza describes the new initiative to make Bolivia food secure.

The president is soon expected to sign the Law of Productive, Communal and Agricultural Revolution. The government says it will invest $500m (£308m) in sustainable policies that guarantee the local and self-sufficient production of high quality food, while preserving and respecting the country's immense biodiversity.

A key part of the proposals in this "food revolution" is Bolivia's intention to produce its own seeds.

"[They] are a major factor in food production," said Carlos Romero, the minister who proposed the draft law. "But in recent years we've seen an increase in their price across the world, because of a rise in oil prices and the monopoly exercised on seeds by a few corporations. That's why we want to create state-owned companies that produce seeds."

Bolivia hasn't been immune to the global volatility of food prices. Earlier this year, for example, it had to import sugar, after shortages led prices to double and sparked protests among consumers. Prices of locally-produced indigenous food, such as quinoa, are also at a record highs: some highland communities have taken to eating rice and pasta instead of their traditional – and more nutritious – crops.

Climate change, price speculation and foreign demand have taken much of the blame, but for Demetrio Pérez, president of Anapo, an association of more than 14,000 wheat, soya and corn producers in the country's fertile eastern plains, consumers are also too reliant on imports.

"We depend too much on Argentina and Brazil," Pérez said. "So what better way to produce our own seeds? If we use the latest technology and have a good harvest, prices can go down and we can convert Bolivia into an exporting country."

A profile of a microcredit worker in Bolivia

The microcredit banks employ hundreds of field workers who work closely with the loan recipients. The attend the meetings of the peer groups of loan recipients and ensure the they are able to pay back the loans. Some microcredit banks even have the field workers help the recipients in other areas of life like health and education.

From Next Billion, we see a profile of one such worker in Bolivia, Justinano Osco.

Justinano Osco drove his dirt bike right into the meeting room where 11 women--members of a communal lending group, or village bank, sat awaiting him. The "room" was an open field in Achocalla, Bolivia. Justiniano is the loan officer who leads the twice-monthly meetings for this village bank, providing trainings, facilitating the loan process and supporting these women who are working to better their lives with the help of microfinance.

I had the opportunity to meet Justiniano-a loan officer with Global Partnerships microfinance partner CRECER-last summer. I was immediately impressed by the respect that Justiniano showed the members of this village bank and the rapport he had with them. He started the meeting off with an icebreaker that involved jumping up and down in place-which led to lots of giggles as the women bounced in their broad skirts, derby hats perched on their heads and long braids flapping at their sides

He then led a participative training on good nutrition, complete with posters of the food pyramid.
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Like many microfinance loan officers, Justiniano has a background that is very similar to the clients that he serves. He grew up in a poor, rural community: His parents were small farmers, working a tiny plot of land with a few animals.

"My childhood was very difficult. I didn't know what shoes were," he explained. He described how he and his clients "share the same culture, the same traditions, the same language." (The entire bank meeting was conducted in Aymara, the indigenous language spoken in this region.)
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Justiniano visits 20 meetings every week, with some requiring a two-and-a-half-hour ride. His dedication to visiting communities in remote regions is typical of micofinance loan officers and reflects a key difference between microfinance institutions and traditional banks. While banks have an office in the city and require you to go to them for service, microfinance organizations are proactive in their outreach, traveling to where their clients live.

Microcredit, an important tool in Bolivia

While it's clear that microcredit by itself can not lift the poor out of poverty, it an important tool to help. If a poor person without collateral wants to get a loan so they sell more produce at their market stand, or buy a few more heads of cattle, they can do so without being taken advantage of.

From the Democracy Center, this blog post written by Adam Kemmis Betty profiles one such micro borrower. Betty works for microcredit banks in Boliva, and his work has him meet many borrowers. Betty draws some conclusions on microcredit and it's use as one big peace of the puzzle to fight poverty.

The real value of microfinance might be more subtle. A groundbreaking study published in 2009, which put together detailed financial diaries for over 250 families, shows that for someone such as Rosa, whose income and expenses are not only low but also seasonal and unpredictable, day-to-day cash flow management can be very complex.

Rosa, like most people in her economic position, needs to carefully manage her finances to ensure that she has enough to pay for everyday necessities, her journeys to the tropics, and to cover larger one-time expenses. Both savings and loans are important financial tools for poor households to have the money they need in hand when they need it, given the bumpiness of when they have income. This is one of the key values of MFI credit as opposed to informal sources.

In the end, is microcredit a magic wand that ends poverty? Not based on the current evidence, to be sure. But as in most markets, the real test of a product's value is whether there is a demand for it. Despite the high costs, the impoverished themselves clearly see a value in microfinance, as evidenced by strong demand and high repayment rates.

Twenty years of microfinance in Bolivia has not eradicated poverty, not by a long shot. But it has provided a large number of the country's poor with access to more reliable, and cheaper credit then they would have been able to obtain otherwise. And as a result many people have managed to lift themselves at least a little higher on the economic ladder as a result.

Malnutrition in the Bolivian highlands

The Inter Press Service has a big story on a mountainous region of Bolivia where malnutrition is rampant. The Betanzos region of the country sees one of every two children malnourished. The region is largely populated by the Quechua Indians.

Julia Velasco Parisaca and Wendy Medina of the IPS give us the stats for this region of Latin America's poorest country.

According to the National Nutrition Survey conducted in 2007 by the Health Ministry, municipalities where 38 of every 100 children are malnourished are classified as having a high degree of food vulnerability. In Betanzos, the rate is 50 out of 100.

Dr. Braulio Escalante, the municipality’s top health authority, told IPS that the living conditions of Quechua families have a major impact on their children’s nutrition and health.

"Most families are involved in agriculture, but they only raise enough food for their own subsistence and a small amount to barter (for other goods) or to sell in order to acquire other foodstuffs, such as sugar or rice," he noted.

Almost 80 percent of the population of Potosí lives in poverty, which is exarcebated by environmental problems like drought. Out of the 10 poorest provinces in the department, nine are Quechua, according to figures from the 2001 census.

The Quechua are the largest indigenous group in Bolivia. A total of 1,557,689 respondents identified themselves as Quechua in the 2001 census, out of a total population of 9.2 million.

The extreme poverty in this region is combined with another problem: local eating habits are not based on the high-protein foodstuffs that are grown and harvested here, such as fava beans, corn, potatoes and wheat, nor on fruit like peaches, said Escalante. Instead, local peasant farmers prefer to trade or sell this fresh produce for processed flour-based products like pasta.

The story goes on to detail a "Mindful Mothers" program, that helps with the children's nutrition. But the program can still only reach 20 percent of the Betanzos population, largely because of hilly terrain without any roads.

"Our task is to weigh and measure children from the time they are newborns until they are five, to see whether or not they are malnourished and whether or not they are gaining weight and growing. As madres vigilantes we train other women how to feed their kids so that one day malnutrition will disappear," Eva Juchani from Buey Tambo told IPS.

Juchani and the other 1,500 madres vigilantes throughout Betanzas also work to inform and educate their communities about better eating and cooking habits.

"It’s hard to get people organised. We started with meetings, markets and festivals. We teach women that as mothers, we must keep ourselves very clean, and give our children food that is well prepared and nutritious," commented Reyna Caba, a community health worker and madre vigilante in Buey Tambo.

The women’s training was sponsored by Plan International, a UK-based non-governmental humanitarian organisation that is collaborating in the implementation of Community Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (C-IMCI), a programme that targets children under the age of five.

C-IMCI was developed in 1996 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

"Madres vigilantes are trained about children’s growth, development and nutrition, and at the same time, they pass on this training to other mothers in their communities, while monitoring the growth and development of their children," explained Aurora Gutiérrez, the health programme coordinator for the Plan International branch in Bolivia, based in Sucre.