May 09, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

SANTA LUCIA LA REFORMA (Guatemala), May 8: Central American governments are handing out cash and fertilisers and buying up grains from farmers to prevent rising food prices from pushing millions into deeper hunger and poverty.

Guatemala, where one of every two children is already malnourished, is giving emergency money to thousands of women in the poorest areas to buy food for their families.

El Salvador is passing out hybrid corn seeds to increase production and Nicaragua is buying crops and selling them cheaply to consumers whose small incomes are stretched by rising prices.

Central America, torn by civil wars in the 1980s, hopes to avoid the type of violent protests over spiralling prices now plaguing nations from Cameroon to Bangladesh.

The region’s governments — members of a free trade deal with the United States — have so far shied away from price caps imposed by other countries and instead are throwing money at the problem.

Guatemalan Vice President Rafael Espada handed cash to some of 2,200 women who lined up in the dusty town of Santa Lucia La Reforma last week as part of a $50 million government plan. Over the next year, 190,000 households in Guatemala’s 45 poorest areas will receive between $40 and $80 a month.

In one town where money was distributed, the local market quickly ran out of goods as women rushed to hoard all the staples they could get their hands on.—Reuters