Entrepreneurs grouped in the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Private Sector Associations (UCCAEP) expressed their concern about what they believe is an attempt to give an interventionist role to the State in food and nutrition.
This is what they say about the draft law 20.076, which seeks to create 82 cantonal committees to decide on the consumption of products that are produced locally.
It is worrisome that both the basic text and the substitute text of the project give an interventionist role to the State, municipalities and groups of people who do not have the technical and scientific knowledge to evaluate the quality of food which must be consumed in the country, which clearly ignores individual liberties,”
said Franco Pacheco, president of UCCAEP.
The institution believes that the proposed text contains several norms that seem to want to weaken the competencies of institutions responsible for sanitary and phytosanitary regulations in the agricultural sector, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), the Phytosanitary Service of the State (SFE) and the National Animal Health Service (SENASA).
Another objection to this initiative is that it establishes the creation of a Citizen Committee to Control Food and Nutrition Security, without technical or scientific experience and where the representation of the private business sector would be in clear numerical disadvantage.
On Tuesday, representatives of the Costa Rican Chamber of the Food Industry (CACIA) stated their opposition to this same initiative before the legislators of the Commission of Agricultural Affairs of the Legislative Assembly.