The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA) will request a budget expansion of Q55 million to deliver fortified food to families with children under five years old at risk of food insecurity.
The request will be raised after the ministry contributed Q58 million of its budget to support the subsidy intended to contain the rise in fuel prices.
As part of the food assistance it provides to vulnerable households, MAGA plans to deliver 300 thousand servings of corn flour and fortified soupwhich will be added to the products already distributed to families, as it is the most far-reaching intervention to assist the population. The purchase will be made through the World Food Program (WFP).
During the ordinary meeting of the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security (Conasán), held on June 22, it was stated that with this intervention 3,600 grams (four bags of 900 grams each) of fortified food per serving will be provided, to increase the caloric and nutritional content of the beneficiaries.
The monetary resources required by the ministry will be for the Program 11focused on food access and availability to serve families in poverty and extreme poverty.
According to MAGA, There is still no date for the delivery of the fortified foodsince the administrative process is developed to request the budget expansion and it will depend on the approval of the Ministry of Public Finance (Minfin) to initiate the agreement with the WFP.
In the information presented in Conasán, the MAGA indicated that, in the route to assist the population, the Municipal Commission for Food and Nutritional Security (Comusan) would request the Community Development Councils (Cocode) to identify the families, with priority for those who are most vulnerable.
The Secretariat of Food and Nutritional Security (Sesán) would analyze the files and manage the assistance before the MAGA, which will be in charge of the logistics, transportation and delivery of the food to the beneficiaries.
For its part, Sesán indicates that it is still evaluating the acquisition of the fortified food and that, if finalized, it will use the MAGA methodology to deliver it, because it has already been tested and validated.
Fewer resources and low execution
In the first quarter of the year, the Executive requested several ministries to provide funds to form a Q2 billion fund intended to finance the fuel subsidy, approved by Decree 11-2026.
The MAGA had to readjust its budget and contribute Q58 million. Now it needs Q55 million to acquire the fortified food that would be allocated to food insecure families.
This intervention would be part of Program 11, called Food Access and Availability, whose budget was modified. From Q1 thousand 200 million Q465.2 million were subtractedso it currently has Q734.7 millionaccording to the Integrated Accounting System (Sicoin) of the Minfin. Despite the reduction in funds, The program registers low execution, since as of June 30 it reached 30.35%.
The MAGA reported that between January and June of this year has benefited 539,591 families with the delivery of 565,704 food rations throughout the country, with priority given to households in conditions of greater vulnerability to food insecurity and acute malnutrition in children.
Vulnerable population
The National Health Development Survey (Endesa) indicates that, in Guatemala, between August and October 2025, when the measurement was carried out, four in 10 people faced moderate food insecuritya situation in which they experienced difficulties in eating healthy and nutritious food due to their economic situation. Meanwhile, 18% are in severe condition and spent an entire day without eating.
Food insufficiency has a direct effect on childhood acute malnutrition. As of June 20, 2026, the report from the Ministry of Health was 10 thousand 763 cases of children under five years of age with that condition, and 16 deaths for that reason. There are 38 more cases under investigation.
Jorge Pernillo, professor at the School of Nutrition at the Universidad Panamericana (Upana), points out that it is important for MAGA to join in the delivery of fortified foods for families in food insecurity, necessary support during the period of seasonal hunger suffered by rural households April and Septemberwhich subsist from agriculture. At that time, people are left without food reserves and without work to earn income and buy food.
The outlook for these families is not encouraging due to the effects of El Niño phenomenon. With less rain, high temperatures and a prolonged heat wave, as predicted by the National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology (Insivumeh), agricultural losses will be inevitable.
In Pernillo’s opinion, if the delivery of fortified food seeks to mitigate seasonal hunger, the action is already latea failure that has been made by this government and the previous ones, which give aid “in December as a Christmas gift.”
“To address the effects of the prolonged dog days, it is important to guarantee food assistance starting in September, because by then there will be no harvests or food reserves in subsistence households,” says the professor.
It is important that, at the time of delivery, households that are food insecure are identified so that assistance reaches those who really need it. This would allow the scope and impact of the action to be measured, as well as more transparent processes.