Mexico City - Farmer organizations warned President Enrique Peña Nieto that the Crusade Against Hunger announced by Secretary of Social Development, Rosario Robles Berlanga, is doomed to failure unless changes are made to public policies related to farming, and resources for this sector are focused on promotion of production and not on the assistance that generates poverty.
After Robles Berlanga's announcement that in sixty (60) days at the outside, she will present the strategy to combat the scourge of hunger, the leader of the CIOAC [Central Independent of Farm Workers and Peasants], Federico Ovalle Vaquera, showed skepticism about the viability of the project. Above all, he said, because the line item for food on next year's budget fell a little more than a billion pesos [about 12.7 million USD].
On behalf of farmer organizations convening a Forum of Analysis about the Pact for Mexico, CIOAC's leader said that
"the farmer organizations demand a change in the economic model and the redistribution of budget resources."Addressing leaders and representatives of CODUC [Coalition of Democratic Urban and Rural Organizations], CAP [Permanent Agrarian Congress], CONORP [Rural and Fishing Agencies] and El Barzón [National Union of Agricultural Producers], the specialist in economics from the Autonomous University of Chapingo, Emilio López Gámez, regretted that the proposal from the President for the 2013 Special Concurrent Program (PEC), has reached the Chamber of Deputies greatly reduced in comparison with annual cycles from 2004 to 2012, where the president's project totaled an average of 17.5 billion pesos [1.4 billion USD].
Based on the earlier [budgets], for the 2013 budget, PEC was expected to reach 337 billion pesos [26.4 billion USD]; however, Peña Nieto's offer barely reaches 300 billion pesos [23.5 billion USD] so it will be difficult for peasant organizations to work with the estimated figure to encourage productivity.
During the press conference, the specialist asked the deputies to perform their function and raise the [budget] amounts, to redirect PEC's 2013 budget resource, and not to forget that Mexico currently imports 44% of foodstuffs: 30% of the maize consumed; 56% and 75% of rice. This situation, he said, keeps the country in food dependency.
Peasant leaders agreed that inconsistencies between the current administration's political announcements and economic projects are also proved by the fact that only 1.1% goes to small- and medium-size producers, while 96% of the resources for productive development are absorbed by the agro-industrial producers. They warned:
"It is time that small producers are no longer seen as poor in the PEC, as this implies that the federal resource is charged to social programs that do not generate wealth."Another incongruity occurs in the amount allocated to the Target Income line item, to which was directed just over 10 billion pesos [780 million USD] for 218,000 beneficiaries, and the CDI [Commission for Development of Indigenous Communities] is scheduled for an amount of 10.3 billion pesos [800 million USD] to serve more than 12 million indigenous people. Spanish original