Mexico • The Permanent Agrarian Congress (CAP) declared itself ready to start discussions of the issues and to work over the next three months with federal authorities and members of the Pact for Mexico with the goal of settling on a Rural Pact before September 1.
The group's coordinator, Max Correa Hernández, highlighted the proposal of the President of the Governing Council of the Pact for Mexico, Jesús Zambrano, which was accepted by the head of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic, Aurelio Nuño, in order to dialogue with campesino organizations.
"Campesinos are required to make a new pact with the Mexican State in order to overcome poverty and to reclaim our food sovereignty; the campesinos and indigenous, today we are not a problem, we are the solution to the problems," he said.
MV Note: A campesino is a person linked to the field (el campo) where crops are grown; before the Spanish, campesinos were esteemed as stewards of the land (Mother Earth) that produced the foods (especially corn) that sustained the community.
In an interview, he said that rural poverty and Mexico's food dependency have structural origins that require correction by government actions, agreed upon with ordinary rural people.
He considered that the Rural Pact should contain clear commitments by the Mexican government to support campesino and family farming as mandated in Articles 4 and 27 of the Constitution, relating to the right to food for all Mexicans and complete rural development.
He considered that the Rural Pact should contain clear commitments by the Mexican government to support campesino and family farming as mandated in Articles 4 and 27 of the Constitution, relating to the right to food for all Mexicans and complete rural development.
The reform of the countryside that the CAP proposed to the federal government and the National Action Party [PAN], the Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI], the Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD], suggests five fundamental themes for the discussions of issues agreed to at the recent meeting of the Governing Council of the Pact for Mexico:
- The first theme calls for a commitment to amend the Special Concurrent Program Budget starting in 2014, from a zero base, to make it multi-year and participatory, aligned to meet the new objectives of the agriculture bill that is to be negotiated.
- The second increases the investment in public goods, in economic infrastructure and in connectivity, with complete respect for agricultural rights and for campesino and indigenous territory, in order to give [this sector] competitiveness in the rural areas of the country.
- As the third theme, the proposal requests support for campesino and family farming with investment in social and human capital organization for production, marketing, storage and food supply. This, with support for training, technical assistance and financing without abandoning campesino farming to commercial agriculture.
- The fourth proposes preservation of natural resources and land rights in order to confront climate change.
- The fifth and final theme outlines a legislative agenda that would allow streamlining and simplifying the legal framework of the rural sector, and making institutions and budget programs more operational and more functional.