Food insecurity creates concern for families in the country

Food insecurity creates concern for families in the country.

Santo Domingo, DR

The availability of food and the affordability of the basic staples generate concern in a population that does not stop complaining in the aisles of supermarkets and market stalls.

Leonor Sánchez, a single mother and head of household, went out yesterday afternoon to do the shopping and expressed her amazement when she took a package of a little more than a pound of ground beef and saw that it was at RD $ 155, verifying that a pound cost RD $ 140.

“A few weeks ago, a pound of prime ground meat did not exceed RD $ 100, and now I can’t find it for less than RD $ 140. I decided better not to buy it,” she explained to LISTÍN DIARIO.

She added that it is worrying that many products have gone up in price, and others are not even to be found.

“Look, I have not found cabbage lettuce, nor bell peppers, green bananas are at RD $ 44 per pound and ripe ones at RD $ 45, liquid milk since the beginning of the pandemic exceeds RD $ 50. Barceló tomatoes are at ten pesos each in the grocery store near my house. This worries me because, at this rate, the money will not last,” explained Leonor, who was in one of the supermarket chains where the population buys the most.

Mothers

Like Leonor, Marisol Almonte also expressed deep concerns over prices. “Everything is expensive.” She indicated that in her neighborhood, bananas are at RD $ 28 and that in previous days she bought a pound of pigeon peas at RD $ 140.

Almonte indicated that the carton of eggs she formerly bought for RD $ 100 is now RD $ 150, and the green bananas that she got at four for RD $ 10 are now sold for RD $ 5 per unit. Recently, Romain Sirois, the representative in the country of the World Food Program (WFP), stated that, as a result of the economic crisis created by Covid-19 and its effects on reducing family income, the rate of severe food malnutrition in the Dominican Republic could go from 1% before the pandemic to 7.4% in 2021.