Yesterday the meeting of the representatives of the food banks of the Pacific-Andean region ended, which brought together 10 directors in the city, among them the doctor Juan Carlos Buitrago, director of the Network of Food Banks of Colombia (Ábaco), who Together with Father Jhon Ferney Araque, director of Caritas Pereira, the foundation that houses the bank in the city, they took an X-ray of the terrifying panorama of malnutrition in the country, delivered figures and learned about the situation in the local area.
Regarding the purpose of this meeting, Father Araque said: “there is a very specific task in the country and a very painful reality, that of hunger, what we banks do is try to mitigate it and we also try to bet on a culture on zero food waste, because the figures are alarming, in the world 9,000 million tons go to waste. In Colombia we are talking about 8,000 tons of food and in Risaralda 900 tons, a painful and sad situation”.
The challenges that directors have is to ask Colombians who do not go hungry: how are we going to do so that food is not wasted? how to transform food? How are we going to fight against hunger? Because there are families that provide food or postpone one of the three main meals. “Between January and June of this year, around 160 children died from chronic malnutrition. That is what this meeting is for, to evaluate our task and enhance reality”, explains the priest.
reagro and the truck
One of the most difficult spaces to work on is raising awareness of this issue with producers. The Pereira Food Bank has links with some Mercasa fruit and vegetable wineries, not all of them because it is not easy. One of the biggest drawbacks of this program is the logistics of collecting donations, which is why Father Araque submitted a project to a contest in Ábaco, Pereira won it and through this they were assigned a truck that has facilitated the process of reaching other municipalities in Risaralda.
“Reagro (Recovery of agricultural surpluses) has to do with being able to go to the farms for the fruit that falls from the tree and that can no longer be sold, but that can be consumed and taken to a family. We have a very nice program with some farms in Belén de Umbría, to recover the surplus. They can call us and we’ll go,” Father Araque pointed out.
To contact the local Food Bank, you can call 3113465501 or write to the email [email protected] and find them on Facebook as @Fundacioncaritaspereira. It is appropriate to know that the Bank supports 125 institutions distributed among communities, parishes and other foundations, which miscounted are 25,000 people.
With the food that is thrown away in Colombia annually, the entire population of Panama, Uruguay and Luxembourg could be fed, three meals a day during that same year.
In big numbers, big concern
The general director delivered data about hunger that leaves you breathless due to the seriousness of the current situation. “This is a problem that affects the development of the country, it is not a problem of the poor children of La Guajira and the data that supports this are: 560,000 children under 5 years of age with chronic malnutrition, it is already scientifically proven that they will have 14 points less in IQ, five less years of schooling and 54% less income in adult life and there are of those children here in Pereira”.
The other fact is that today more than five million Colombians, 10% of the country is less intelligent because they were hungry in early childhood, which is irreversible because the brain does not connect and therefore they are less productive. “There are studies that say that in countries with the malnutrition problems that Colombia has, GDP drops by up to 11% because we have less intelligent and productive people. This 11% is $96 billion a year, which is equivalent to four tax reforms, which is why hunger does have something to do with everyone,” Buitrago said.
According to the ‘Hunger Map’ that translates world hunger map, Colombia is among the 20 countries at risk of food insecurity and it gets worse every day, because 60 children are diagnosed every week with acute malnutrition, since they have 12 times more risk of die than another his age without malnutrition.
It’s not for loss either
These banks work non-profit, but the tax issue for them is very complicated, because they must comply with legal standards and the Dian, for this reason they must pay taxes, it is up to the donors to help them in this matter, because they ask them if they will receive some benefit through the donation. Speaking of donors, the father is still waiting for the promised help from the Pereira Chamber of Commerce that has not materialized yet.
Given
In Colombia there are a total of 24 Food Banks, which are distributed throughout the country.
Cipher
Approximately 16 million people eat poorly (without daily fruits, vegetables or meat) in Colombia.