MANAGUA, Nicaragua – The presidents of Central America and the leaders of the governments belonging to the socialist cooperation bloc known as ALBA will meet today in Managua for a regional summit on food security to study ways to increase agricultural production and ensure basic food supplies for each country.

Under the banner “Food for Life,” the presidents are expected to articulate new strategies to confront the global food crisis, which has hit the impoverished countries of Central America particularly hard (see story at www.nicatimes.net).

Nicaraguan Agriculture Minister Ariel Bucardo said the participating countries of Central America plus Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and possibly several other Caribbean nations will seek to firm up an agreement to invest $600 million in the upcoming planting season, which will start with the first rains later this month. In the long term, the bloc of countries will look to invest much more money in modernizing agricultural productivity with tractors, irrigation and new farming technology, the minister said.

Bucardo described the food security arrangement as a partnership between countries, and also between the public and private sectors.

The minister said the problem with food security in Nicaragua is not a lack of food so much as the rising cost of food. To combat the problem at home and in the region, he said, Nicaragua is aiming to increase its production of rice, beans, sorghum and corn to first satisfy local demand and then export to neighboring countries that have moved increasingly away from basic agriculture in past years.

Bucardo told The Nica Times that $150 million will be invested in the upcoming planting season in Nicaragua to help 160,000 small and medium-sized producers with seed and fertilizer, with money provided by Venezuela and the national financial system. He repeated President Daniel Ortega's claim that Nicaragua has the best agricultural conditions in the region.

Bucardo said that out of today's summit will come a special multi-national team to articulate regional production goals and policies.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is expected to attend along with other top government officials. Although the Arias administration has assured its residents there will be enough rice to last through the year, the daily La Nación reported yesterday that domestic harvests of another ubiquitous staple, beans, were slashed by 17 percent in some areas by dry weather.

Though all the countries seem to agree that the region needs to work together to address food security issues, political ideology is certain to play a major role in today's summit. The food crisis has already been politicized by the ALBA nations, which have blamed the situation on the “tyranny of global capitalism,” and analysts say the ALBA alliance is attempting to use the issue to gain new inroads into Central America.

ALBA forerunner Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, canceled late yesterday for health reasons, according to his government, which said it would send the foreign minister to Managua instead.

The Cuban delegation was also due to arrive yesterday afternoon at 5 p.m. and attend an ALBA rally later in the evening in Managua's Plaza of the Revolution, on the eve of today's summit.

It remains to be seen how ALBA members' revolutionary politics will sit with the more moderate and conservative presidents who will join the group today.