Food Insecurity In El Salvador

Savannah Orndorff
Professor McClary
English 102
20 October 2014
Food Insecurity in El Salvador The advancement of technology has no doubt changed the way the world works. We no longer have to wait for horses to travel with messages from distant relatives. In fact we can communicate instantaneously. But what effects has technology had on the willingness to provide charity for those in need? Charity business has expanded no doubt from the advancement of technology easily going international through different technological mediums. Hundreds of years ago the only way that you would become aware about charity options were through churches or school. In modern society, charity organizations are thrown at the public with such ferocity through advertisements.

Most of the land was in the possession of the families of wealthy elites. These wealthy elite began to mold the country into a singular export country focusing solely on the production and distribution of what first began as cacao and evolved into coffee. Agrarian reforms in 1980 began to try and distribute this rich land into the hands of the civilians (voices on the boarder pt 1). This reform eventually “liberated over 500 hectares from 230 estates, or about 15% of the country’s farmland,” number wise this may not seem like a lot but for the people this began to spark hope to change the agricultural sector of the economy (voices on the boarder). Alfredo Cristiani defined the El Salvador we know today by selfishly prioritized his family business, Semillas Cristiani Burkard, over internal development curtailing “growth and development of the domestic sector by heavily importing seeds from Semillas Cristiani Burkard in order to accumulate personal wealth,” (vobp1). El Salvadorians became extremely dependent on imported foods resultantly moving away from subsidence farming. Since Cristiani the Funes administration beginning in 2009 and lasting until present day has been left with the consequences of the Cristiani egotistical

Furthering the definition, food security is built on three pillars: food availability; the amount of food available consistently, food access; having the ability to obtain nutritious food, and food use; knowledge of basic nutrition and healthy wellbeing as well as acceptable water and sanitation (world food definition). The World Trade Agreement determines food security through four aspects; production which is determined by internal and external policies, trade influenced by policies affecting food, labor which is influenced by the “level and location of employment opportunities… influenced by trade policy”, and transfer based entitlement from governments and aid donors “influenced by multilateral trade agreements.