Chronic Malnutrition and Food Insecurity have plagued rural Guatemala for generations, contributing to a vicious cycle of poverty from which it is difficult to emerge.
While international organizations and governments have targeted the Food Security and Malnutrition challenges facing Guatemala, progress has scarcely budged in half a century.
The Effects of Malnutrition are a Life Sentence of Adverse Consequences for Health and Survival.
In 1960, the percentage of children in Guatemala under 5 years suffering from chronic malnutrition was 60%. In 2023, the percentage of children with this condition was 46.5%. This means that the average annual improvement between 1960 and 2023 was only 0.21% per year.
The UN’s World Food Program notes that in Guatemala, “the prevalence of stunting (height to age) in children under 5, is one of the highest in the world – and is the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean. While the rate of stunting is 46.5% nationally, the stunting rate climbs up to 70% in some departments (states), with peaks as high as 90% in the hardest-hit municipalities.”
According to a recent UNICEF report on Guatemala, “Five in ten children under five are chronically malnourished. This means they will lose 30% of their brain capacity for the rest of their lives …. Malnutrition causes them to drop out of school, lowers their productivity, makes them susceptible to illness and even loss of IQ -- irreversible effects that last a lifetime. Chronic malnutrition affects eight in ten (80%) indigenous children.”
Malnutrition is transgenerational – that is, men and women affected by malnutrition during their early years carry physical and mental impacts which extend to their own children, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and malnutrition into the future.
A few years ago, USAID estimated it deployed nearly $80 million per year in programs to address malnutrition just in Guatemala. However, little improvement has occurred in the rate of malnutrition among children and moms.
USAID is joined by other governments, international agencies, governments and NGOs in experiencing limited program success. Typically, “top-down” strategies fail -- often derailed by deep systemic inefficiencies and hamstrung by cynicism about the capacity and will of poor people to help feed their own children.
Other programs address malnutrition and food insecurity with hand-out strategies. Although eminently necessary in emergencies, over time, hand-out programs can encourage dependency and do not give people the tools to combat malnutrition and food insecurity themselves.
Decades of persistent poverty, paternalism, and an inadequate education system have acted as massive disincentives to self-reliance and generational resilience.
Properly designed and implemented strategies that break the atmosphere of dependency can sustainably improve food security and reduce malnutrition. These strategies are vital for ensuring all people have an opportunity to fully develop their human potential.
Malnutrition is not just an individual and family tragedy. It has far-reaching consequences for human resources, economic productivity, and national development overall.
How is Seeds for a Future Impacting Food Security and Chronic Malnutrition in Guatemala?
Since 2009, Seeds for a Future has developed and implemented its long-term training Program for addressing food security, nutrition, health, and economic challenges among poor rural families in Guatemala.
The Seeds Program’s training is taught and applied at the household level and easily replicated in other communities. The training funding does not rely on government programs, many of which can suffer from implementation issues due to underfunding, faulty program design, inefficiencies in the use of monies, and a lack of political will.
The Seeds for a Future Program is practical, low-cost, and replicable from family to family while flexing to meet each community's unique needs.
The current Seeds Program has helped more than 5,200 families in 19 communities – approximately 41,600 individuals.
Seeds for a Future continues to increase the number of families and communities where our program is available. Your support is vital to making this happen year in and year out.
Explore our "How the Program Works" page to learn more about the Seeds for a Future Program and how it works.
Or, Connect with the Founders, Suzanne and Earl de Berge.
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