Translated by Tammy Nolan
Facing the over pricing of the basic food basket, millions of Mexican families have to spend up to 90 percent of their income buying food, stated the National Campesino [small farmer] Confederation (NCC).
The National Campesino Confederation indicated that this phenomenon occurs mostly in rural areas, where incomes are the lowest in the country, which is why it is important to stop the [international commodity] speculators who have contributed to the high level of poverty and lack of access to basic products for half the population.
This, along with the lack of credit and public and private investment, and the lack of transference of science and technology to the Mexican countryside has hindered strengthening food sovereignty and security, to the point that in the past two presidential terms (12 years), the cost of imported basic products has risen 223 percent.
Because of this, the Mexico Pact should become the fundamental element in the changing of the development model in the farming, forestry and fishing sectors, declared the president of the Board of Directors of the National Campesino Confederation, Gerardo Sánchez García.
Because of lack of policies giving attention to the countryside and because of opting to import food products, instead of producing them,
“hunger has seized more than 12 million rural inhabitants, principally indigenous and campesinos.”Hence, of the proposals from the National Campesino Confederation to the National Development Plan 2013-2018, the most important are establishing a social pact between members of the National Food System that favors security and sovereignty; creating a law of food planning; regulating modifications to Articles 4 and 27 of the Constitution, and creating policies comparable to those of Mexico’s trading partners.
Moreover, the Secretary of Agriculture, Animal Breeding, Rural Development, Fishing and Alimentation, together with legislators and representatives from organizations and institutions related to public agriculture and food policy, last week, created a multi-sector commission which may prevent welfarism practices in the rural sector and opacity in the delivery of resources and support to the countryside.
The commission will be the “overseer of the rules of operations” of programs of the agency and its goal will be to analyze and develop more efficient, inclusive, transparent and productive guidelines. Spanish original