SIGN UP FOR OUR By Wendy Anders
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís views local seafood products on display at a ‘buy local’ CNP event.
To strengthen local livestock producers and fisheries, the majority of which are micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, the Costa Rican government has asked all public institutions to purchase Costa Rican-raised products.
Minister of Agriculture Luis Felipe Arauz Cavallini said public agencies such as schools, universities, hospitals, jails, courts, and others, must contract with the National Production Council (CNP, in Spanish) to acquire domestic raw or processed fish and meat products for use in their cafeterias and meal services.
The move is part of the National Development Plan’s goal to strengthen the smallest and most vulnerable links in the country’s agricultural production chain, said the CNP in a press statement last week. Many Costa Rican fisheries are run as small cooperatives.
To increase these small businesses’ capacities, state agencies are being asked to purchase directly from local producers and to avoid intermediaries, continued the CNP.
The Costa Rican Institute of Fishing and Aquaculture (Incopesca) has a list of certified local fish and seafood suppliers.
This joint effort to strengthen local fisheries will benefit such small producers as Mazabre Fishing, Coopemoluscos Chomes R.L., Paquera-Tambor Responsible Marine Area Fisheries, and Coopetárcoles R.L., said the CNP.
Oscar Quirós, CNP’s agro marketing director said local fish and seafood purchases by public institutions has declined recently from CRC829 million (about US$1.5 million) in 2014 to CRC637 million (about US$1.2 million) in 2015. On a positive note, the number of public schools purchasing local fish and seafood has risen from 300 in 2013 to 700 this year, said Quirós.
