Abstract

DEL CASTILLO-MATAMORROS, Sara Eloisa  and  GORDILLO MOTATO, Ángela Marcela. Poor hunger versus agrofuel production another inequality with negative impact in Colombian population. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2011, vol.59, suppl.1, pp.59-65. ISSN 0120-0011.

Colombia has problems regarding the availability of food, as accepted by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture itself. Increased food prices resulting from agrofuel production which is beginning to compete with the supply of food for human consumption is a situation which has even been recognised by World Bank spokespeople. This organisation once promoted agrofuel production as an alternative for rescuing the countryside from the oblivion to which Latin-American economies had been condemned during the last few decades. Abundant evidence has now shown that encouraging agrofuel production has promoted the spread of monocrops, in turn leading to soil deterioration, thereby producing greater difficulty in ensuring national food production which would guarantee availability as an essential component of food and nutritional safety. The corn needed to produce the ethanol required by a first-world car to cover 32,000 km/year could supply a normal person's daily calorie needs for 62 years. For example, most Colombian regions and departments forming part of current large agrofuel production megaprojects are well above the average national chronic malnutrition rate (12% for children aged under five and 12.6% for schoolchildren, according to 2005 Colombian Nutritional Survey results. Healthcare professionals must be aware of and analyse such policy putting the food safety of Colombia's most disadvantaged population at risk.

Keywords : hunger; population; food; agricultural cultivation; food production; food security.

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