Tackling hunger in Nicaragua

In an effort to stem rising rural poverty in Nicaragua, the European Union (EU) and FAO have joined the government in supporting organisations of small-scale farmers boost the productivity of staple crops, like beans, maize and rice.

"52.5 million people are suffering hunger in Latin America," said Alan Bojanic, FAO's Deputy Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean recently, identifying high food prices and the global economic downturn among the main factors for increased food insecurity in the region.

In recent years Nicaragua has made important advances in the fight against hunger and poverty. However, it is still the second poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean after Haiti, and a country in which poverty is above all a rural phenomenon: two out of three people on the country-side live on less than one dollar a day.