Food security in the communities of the dry corridor in the municipality of Jalapa

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: determine the current situation of food security in the dry corridor of the Municipality of Jalapa, Guatemala. METHOD: the research was developed as a comparative case study, taking 3 villages from the Community of Ladinos Pardos where the municipal and food security authorities of Jalapa consider that according to their indicators there are no problems with food insecurity, these were compared with 3 villages with high rates of food insecurity in the Community of Santa María Xalapán, which is located in the territory called “Dry Corridor” and is made up mostly of residents of the Xinka ethnic group. To obtain the information, the measurement scale developed by the FAO was used, called the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale-ELCSA, which belongs to the family of food insecurity measurement scales based on household experience. RESULTS: the adult population in the villages of the Ladinos Pardos Community presents indicators of 3% and 2% of moderate and severe food insecurity respectively, while in children under 18 years of age the levels of moderate and severe food insecurity are less than 1%. CONCLUSION: the best conditions of food and nutritional security for the adult population and those under 18 years of age are found in the villages of the Ladinos Pardos Community.