Regardless of what is being claimed, there is no food sovereignty in Mexico. According to Via Campesina, food sovereignty is the right of people to produce their food, in their territory, in a way that reinforces their cultural values and the environment. It should ensure that peasants, family farmers and rural women have the resources they need to produce food, have greater access to and control over land, seeds, water, credit and markets (https://shorturl.at/frdGC).
None of that is happening here. To begin with, more than half of the basic grains consumed by the population are imported. The combined action of free trade agreements (especially the T-MEC), the agrarian counter-reform to Article 27 of the Constitution on January 6, 1992, which opened social property to the market, the deregulated operation of large agribusiness consortiums and the lack of financing and development policies have turned us into a country subject to the interests of the agribusiness giants.
Our production dependency can be seen, for example, in fertilizer imports, aggravated by the war between Russia and Ukraine. We only manufacture about 30 percent of what we need. During the first half of 2024, imports exceeded the already high figures for the same period last year by 17.5 percent. Ironically, during the last decades of the last century, the country was self-sufficient in the manufacture of fertilizers.
Since Mexico’s entry into GATT (1986) and the successive counter-reforms to the 27th Constitution, peasant agriculture has been dismantled and an agro-export model has been strengthened. We export (mainly to the US) beer, tequila, avocado, berries and vegetables, and we buy corn, rice, beans, sugar, soybeans (the second largest US importer of this oilseed in the world) and sorghum. The profits from our exports stay with the transnational companies.
This model provides massive employment for some 3 million day laborers who work in brutal conditions of exploitation. They work more than eight hours a day. Families live in overcrowded quarters and camps, often without drinking water. They have no social security or medical services; paid days off are rare and children do not go to school. They are exposed to pesticides. Women are sexually harassed by foremen and employees. Many young people use crystal meth to cope with overwhelming workloads. Attempts to unionize and negotiate collective bargaining agreements are persecuted and sanctioned by employers. Unfortunately, there are no policies or resources to curb this situation, which is not unlike that narrated in 1910 by John Kenneth Turner in México Bárbaro.
There is no evidence to suggest that with the rural budget approved for 2025 things will change. As Ernesto Ladrón de Guevara has explained, the allocated resources total 453,711 billion pesos, just over 1 percent higher in nominal terms than in 2024. In other words, it does not compensate for the effects of inflation.
The budget does not guarantee an increase in the production of basic commodities to replace imports, nor does it allocate significant resources to agricultural development. For example, the Special Concurrent Program for the Rural Sector does not allocate amounts for credit or agricultural insurance, central elements to support the countryside. Nor does IMSS Bienestar appear. Even less support is available for the collective organization of production, which is necessary for farmers to achieve economies of scale that would allow them to face coyotes and industrialists on a less uneven playing field.
On November 10, Julio Berdegué Sacristán, head of Agriculture, announced the creation of Productora de Semillas del Bienestar, to provide high quality grains to bean growers. We consume at least one million tons of the legume, but only 700,000 are harvested, he said. However, the budget does not explicitly mention an amount for this item.
A few days earlier, on October 22, this official reported on the Cosechando Soberanía (Harvesting Sovereignty) program, which “will give the opportunity to increase the production of the main foodstuffs in 1,175 municipalities with high levels of poverty and production potential, where 536,000 producers will be benefited” by the end of 2030. Unfortunately, in the 2025 budget there are no resources allocated to this program.
On November 25, the Secretary stated that irrigation technification will be promoted in 52,000 hectares for districts 010 and 075 in Sinaloa. But it is not clear where the budget will come from.
On the other hand -explains Ladrón de Guevara- resources destined to the rural sector are found in the Basic Education for Wellbeing Benito Juárez program (under the SEP) and the Support to Women’s Authorities in the Federal Agencies program (under the Ministry of the Interior ).
Direct support, such as that for the Elderly, increases the income of people in the villages, but does not promote the cultivation of staple crops or work, and is disconnected from production. Other programs have fragmented (and promoted the sale) of common areas of ejidos and communities.
Without more spending on the countryside and without sufficient resources for development policies, without reversing the counter-reforms to the 27th Constitution, without the defense of day laborers, without strong organizations of small producers, without another agricultural model, with the monopolization of water concessions for agricultural use, not only will there be no food sovereignty, but instead our dependency will deepen.
Original text by Luís Hernández Navarro in La Jornada December 31st, 2024.
Photo by Monika Jarosz.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.