World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Benjamin Dixon, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in Nicaragua (left), Helmut W. Rauch, WFP Country Director in Nicaragua (centre), and Ken Davis, P4P Global Coordinator inagurated the Purchase for Progress (P4P) Regional Meeting for Central America in Granada, Nicaragua. The meeting took place on 23-25 April 2012. 

"We appreciate WFP's best efforts to implement the P4P project because it maximizes and articulates all the strategies being implemented by the Nicaraguan Institute of Agriculture and Technology, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry among smallholder farmers," said Benjamin Dixon, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Nicaragua. "Micro and smallholder farmers are key to Nicaragua's productivity, and we are confident that with them we will achieve many important goals."

Helmut W. Rauch, WFP Country Director, acknowledged Nicaragua's efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in terms of reducing undernutrition.

"I take the personal challenge of enhancing the capacity of the P4P project to reach more smallholder farmers in order to make the word "hunger" just a memory and not a reality", said Rauch during his inaugural speech.

Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the production of basic grains in Nicaragua rests in the hands of small farmers. The Purchase for Progress strategy is to strengthen organizational and technical capacities of 10 cooperatives (2,000 smallholder farmers) in Nueva Segovia, in order to enhance their knowledge on new methods and farming techniques to improve their quality and volume production.