Top 10 Costa Rica

Costa Rican legislative assembly discusses food plan

Costa Rica’s Legislative assembly on Thursday started discussing the 2008 second extraordinary budget of 30 billion Costa Rican Colones (57.9 million U.S. dollars) which includes the money to finance the Food National Plan.

The Food National Plan, focusing on issues such as increasing the production of staples like rice, reactivating crop insurance and providing better credit conditions to food producers, was among the government’s measures to cope with the world crisis of rising food prices.

Half of the budget would be used as food tokens to 16,000 poor families with children under 12, and scholarships for 43,000 children.

Guillermo Zuliga, the finance minister, told Xinhua that the budget also included a certain amount of money for state universities to handle salary increases.

The country would also seek to increase its capacity of storing grain.

The budget, however, encountered strong opposition at the Congress on Thursday.