The same transnational corporations that have led communities to poverty by means of the importation of high fructose [products], potatoes, coffee and wheat while posing unfair competition to domestic production, are those that have "captured" the National Crusade Against Hunger, declared representatives of the Alliance for Healthy Food which includes twenty organizations.
Now these companies, along with the federal government, are seeking to combine public assistance and philanthropy in the context of the Crusade, but it is a road for maintaining inequality and is based on violation of social rights.
"Their purpose is to clean up the image of the monopolies" in order to continue the impunity, enjoy tax exemptions and avoid paying taxes, said Victor Suárez, from the National Association of Commercial Enterprises (ANEC).Suárez added that the Crusade is an hambretón [term is made up from hambre (hunger) and maratón (marathon)]; it is not a State policy based on rights. He explained that PepsiCo imports thousands of tons of high fructose [corn] syrup, a substitute for cane sugar used in the production of soft drinks:
"It generates poverty in sugarcane fields and in the national productive system."Further, he added, with its brand Gamesa, [PepsiCo] imports seventy percent of wheat from the United States and Canada, to the detriment of domestic production, which "creates hunger, poverty and unemployment". He argued that Sabritas products also use imports of transgenic potatoes.
With the agreements that the Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL) signed with Nestlé and PepsiCo, the SEDESOL
"pretends to be fighting against hunger, while these companies contribute to increasing the poverty. It is a demagogic act that preserves the monopolies."Nestlé has affected thousands of coffee farmers with its importations of the bean to produce the water-soluble [instant coffee], said Fernando Celis, from the National Coordinating Committee of Coffee Organizations.
Celis pointed out that of the 505,000 coffee producers, 80 percent are indigenous, and 96 percent of domestic production is Arabica [originally from Ethiopia (East Africa); grows well in different soils, altitudes and climates], but the company wants to produce robust [species of canephora coffee from West Africa] soluble [instant], so it imports about a million sacks a year.
The demand for this grain has caused coffee prices to fall. Guerrero is an extreme case:
"...Nestlé, through its local buyers, pays a thousand pesos [$83 USD] for arabica coffee (of better quality than the robusta), which is less than what it pays for robusta."
He added that with the massive introduction not only of this company's products in the poorest campesino [rural] and indigenous regions, but of their promoters to
"teach food preparation, which may include cakes with instant coffee, artificial flavors and lots of sugar--all this will contribute to the increase in obesity and poor nutrition."Alfonso Ramírez Cuellar, from El Barzón, said the Crusade should be reconsidered, as the SEDESOL has already indicated that seventy programs are included; nevertheless, they are not connected and they are generators of poverty.
Alejandro Calvillo, Consumer Power, recalled that a social outcry arose in Brazil protesting Nestlé's participation in the country's Zero Hunger program. He considered that in Mexico there should be a national campaign against malnutrition, because every year 10,000 people die from malnutrition and 90,000 die from diabetes.
"In the same poverty-stricken family, it is common to find the two expressions of malnutrition: malnutrition and obesity," he stated.