Poor Food Security Rates in Guatemala

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Guatemala is a highly populated country located in Central America that faces the major problem associated with poverty. As one of the poorest countries in Latin America, it displays an evident imbalance in the distribution of general income, and most of the population relates to the poverty line (Villarreal Sosa & Lesniewski, 2021). Despite certain social factors such as racism and sexism, one of the main issues behind the poor state of living conditions in the country is government and business management.

On average, the food security topic is essential within the process of evaluating the overall level of the well-being of the citizens and the extent of successful resource management. Guatemala is known for having poor rates of food security across its territory (Müller et al., 2020). The implications of demonstrated insecurity include the lack of safe and healthy food to consume in order to contribute to the wellbeing of the local people, lack of agricultural progression, and a total population exceeding the amount of food available for safe consumption (Müller et al., 2020). Therefore, the quality of life of the citizens of Guatemala is directly affected by the lack of proper resource management related to food security rates within the country.

The issue exceeds beyond the generic control of the natural resources and agricultural processes and expands to the details of proper business management. Businesses directly impact economic access to food by regulating the agricultural sponsorship and profit, the distribution, and even the target audience of the products. While the concept of an inclusive business can be highly beneficial to the development of food security rates through contributing to the farmers’ livelihoods, the opposite idea of a non-inclusive business that focuses solely on the profit stagnates the general enhancement of food security nationwide (Van Westen et al., 2019). Low food security data in Guatemala highlights a strategically incompetent general approach to businesses.

Since the government has a certain influence and weight in the context of businesses, the overflow of non-inclusive business models signifies poor governmental economic management. Encouragement of specific economic models reinforced by the laws, regulations, and restrictions determines the general overview of business function within a country (Santosa et al., 2020). Hence, the original reason behind the issues related to food security rates in Guatemala is based on the governmental approach to economics and business management.

Although poor economic decisions provoke a further decrease in food security levels, the insecurity has a direct impact on the economic well-being of the citizens of Guatemala. For instance, the lack of proper nutrition resources causes higher prices on food and creates economic competition among local people. Thus, their labor gets directed towards the primary goal of obtaining needed nutrition, which limits the economic efforts of the citizens to basic survival (Kondash et al., 2021). Thus, prominent food insecurity heavily affects the rate of poverty in the country, as people have to spend the majority of their resources on food.

Additionally, the lack of proper nutrition represented by healthy and accessible food decreases the physical well-being of people. As their health is getting worse due to the poor living conditions and the lack of energy and vitamins normally obtained by meals, people become less capable of hardworking. This way, the level of effort that they can generally apply to the labor in order to access the only available nutrition options decreases over time in correlation with the decrease in their health, which directly impacts their income and economic status.

Due to colonialism, the main religion that was introduced to the country by the Spanish people was Catholic Christianity (Freiwald et al., 2020). The second dominating religion in the country is Protestant Christianity, while numerous other beliefs remain among the vast minority (McCleary & Barro, 2019). However, the remains of Mayan spirituality are present among the indigenous people, and the values promoted by it are majorly different from the religions reinforced by colonialism. Mayan religious practices are closely connected to nature and offerings, as well as worshipping natural resources (Heidebrecht & Balzer, 2020). On the other hand, Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity are both based on ideas that are different from the ones suggested by the Maya people, which creates a contradiction in core values among these religions. This contradiction can have a certain impact on the management of the natural resources, which results in a decrease in the general food security rates in Guatemala.

In terms of food consumption biases related to local culture and religion, there are no evident food taboos. However, there are specific beliefs related to the choice of food based on the internal and external factors surrounding a person that determine the appropriate time of the day for the consumption of certain types of food (Amaya et al., 2020). Therefore, some culture and religion-based beliefs can have a direct impact on food distribution and consumption choices, which relates to the level of food security. Generally, the food that is considered culturally significant in Guatemala primarily consists of fruits and vegetables, which is a reference to the indigenous people’s connection with nature and worshipping of the resources of the land. However, the preference towards specific meals affects their price and availability, while other meals that may be available might not be consumed based solely on the beliefs despite the generally low level of available nutrition.

According to the recent data, the indicators of healthcare access, malnutrition, and public health vulnerabilities are relatively low in Guatemala (Rice et al., 2018). Furthermore, the healthcare field of the country is not fully developed and not accessible to many citizens. In fact, the high rates of malnutrition caused by food insecurity within the country are not addressed by the healthcare opportunities that are being provided. Additionally, due to the limits of public free healthcare, the only proper treatment that the people can get comes from privatized systems. However, since the rates of poverty are extremely high in the country, the majority of the people cannot afford such services. It results in the general downfall of nationwide well-being and further decreases the level of food security in Guatemala.

In the end, the main reason behind the issue of malnutrition and poor food security rates is the inefficiency of resource management. The lack of management proficiency applies both to the decisions of the government and privatized businesses related to healthcare and food production and distribution. The lack of focus on the inclusivity of agricultural and healthcare opportunities decreases the nationwide health rates further, and the only direct way to change the situation in a positive way is to work on the establishment of reliable food security strategies.

References

Amaya, N., Padulosi, S., & Meldrum, G. (2020). Value chain analysis of chaya (Mayan spinach) in Guatemala.Economic Botany, 74(1), 100-114. Web.

Freiwald, C., Wolf, K. A. M., Pugh, T., Rand, A. J., & Fullagar, P. D. (2020). Early colonialism and population movement at the Mission San Bernabé, Guatemala.Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(3), 543-553. Web.

Heidebrecht, L., & Balzer, G. (2020). Decolonial experimentations in international service learning research and practice: Learnings from Mayan indigenous host communities. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 26(1), 143-159.

Kondash, A. J., Herrera, I., Castellanos, E., Baker, J., Leiva, B., Van Houtven, G.,… & Redmon, J. H. (2021). Food, energy, and water nexus research in Guatemala–A systematic literature review. Environmental Science & Policy, 124, 175-185.

McCleary, R. M., & Barro, R. J. (2019). Protestants and catholics and educational investment in Guatemala. In Advances in the Economics of Religion (pp. 169-195). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Web.

Müller, A., Bouroncle, C., Gaytán, A., Girón, E., Granados, A., Mora, V.,… & van Etten, J. (2020). Good data are not enough: understanding limited information use for climate risk and food security management in Guatemala.Climate Risk Management, 30, 1-12. Web.

Rice, H. E., Lou-Meda, R., Saxton, A. T., Johnston, B. E., Ramirez, C. C., Mendez, S.,… & Sexton, J. B. (2018). Building a safety culture in global health: lessons from Guatemala. BMJ global health, 3(2), 1-8. Web.

Santosa, M. G. S., Supartha, W. G., Riana, I. G., & Surya, I. (2020). A contiguity of social capital, competence, and business performance moderating by government policy.The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(9), 727-736. Web.

Van Westen, A. G., Mangnus, E., Wangu, J., & Worku, S. G. (2019). Inclusive agribusiness models in the Global South: The impact on local food security. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 41, 64-68. Web.

Villarreal Sosa, L., & Lesniewski, J. (2021). De-colonizing study abroad: Social workers confronting racism, sexism and poverty in Guatemala. Social Work Education, 40(6), 719-736.

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Poor Food Security Rates in Guatemala

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