As drought breeds hunger in Guatemala, agriculture program aims to help By Reuters

SAN AGUSTIN ACASAGUASTLAN, Guatemala (Reuters) – Drought and poor harvests are a widespread threat in Guatemala, where hunger and malnutrition are widespread, especially in rural areas – a reality that international aid programs are trying to reduce.

Workers from the UN’s World Food Program aim to train people in rural Guatemala about sustainable agricultural practices to help fight malnutrition.

Guatemala straddles a region known as the Central American Dry Corridor, where over the past decade droughts have been longer and more severe, and extreme weather events such as hurricanes have caused widespread damage.

This puts families living in the dry corridor, especially small and medium farmers and indigenous people, in vulnerable situations, unable to properly feed their children.

Guatemala’s stunting rate is consistently one of the highest in Latin America, UNICEF data shows. In 2022, 44% of children in Guatemala fell outside the normal height range for age.

“Before we didn’t know what fish farming was. There was a lot of malnutrition here,” said Lilian Ramos, a fish producer from the community of Tecuiz in San Agustin Acasaguastlan, a town in the Dry Corridor.

Her young children accompany her to a pond where she casts in a net, retrieving several fish.

“We started with a small well and saw how we grew little by little,” added Ramos.

World Food Program training emphasizes using innovation and proactive action to minimize damage to crops and food sources, enabling community farms to weather difficult weather challenges and continue to produce.

“We’re seeing some improvements… it’s an excellent model that, even in terms of permeability, is an example for other countries that are also facing climate change challenges,” said Tania Goossens of the World Food Program in Guatemala .