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LATIN AMERICA
Riches abound... and so do the poor
• SOME 75% of poor people in the
world live in rural areas.
BY NAVIL GARCIA ALFONSO —Granma International staff
writer—
Paradoxically, countryside areas have consolidated
themselves as immense zones of poverty, in place of
becoming important economic centers based on
agricultural development.
José
Alvarado Boirivant, professor of administration in
Economic Science at the University of Costa Rica,
affirmed at the 9th International Conference of
Economists on Globalization and Problems of
Development in Havana that Latin America is the
continent with the greatest disparity between rich
and poor because the distribution of wealth has
reached its highest indexes of inequality.
According to information from the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
in 2003 there were 222 million poor people in the
region, and of them, 97 million were living in
abject poverty.
Countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua
have the greatest number of poor people in rural
areas. This is owed to “erroneous agricultural
policies that have been accumulating for hundreds of
years, an absence of agrarian reform in the region
and the implementation of trade models that are
disadvantageous for small agriculturalists,”
affirmed Professor Alvarado.
“In
Costa Rica, for example, the campesino sector has
practically been abandoned by de facto governments.
They have not encouraged investments in the rural
areas and the people who live there have no access
to the infrastructures of health, education,
communications and much less to those related to
economic development,” he added.
Poverty generates other ills such as demographic
increases and rural-urban migration. On the
outskirts of the city, vast rings of slums are
created in which poor people are exploited and
discriminated against because of their origins.
However - and here lies one of the principal
contradictions of the liberal economic systems of
Latin America - a great tool in terms of commercial
and social development is being left to one side in
campesino communities, namely agriculture, specified
the economist.
“For
many years, the role of agriculture has been
undervalued, and as a result its contributions to
the Gross Domestic Product are insignificant. Our
government has not used agriculture’s potential as
an efficient tool to combat poverty, generate
employment and produce substantial financial gains
in order to link it with other areas such as
transport.”
“In
my country,” said the professor, “a definite
intention on the part of the government is being
perceived in respect of the signing a Free Trade
Agreement with the United States. However, for the
majority of the population, it is clear that this
will generate even more poverty. Our agricultural
sector, just to give one example, would be seriously
affected by the preferential income of foodstuffs
produced in the United States. “
“We
are facing completely opposing approaches and
policies reflecting different development. While in
Latin America agricultural subsidies are being
reduced, in the United States, the government is not
just maintaining them but trading these products to
a greater advantage in the South.
“Small and medium-sized agriculturists in Costa
Rica cannot compete with imported food products.
Many of these items are produced using large
quantities of agro-chemicals,” he added.
We
need favorable macroeconomic and financial policies
within the region, as well as a reallocation of
resources to rural areas in order to facilitate
sustainable development.
“Organic agriculture could become an economic pillar
in our nations,” concluded Professor Alvarado. “With
this, the problems of hunger and unemployment could
be solved, and at the same time we would be
respecting and caring for the environment.”
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