“The big ones already have their own schemes, and there they are not going to return to support, as was done in the past,” – with this phrase, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo confirmed that she would continue the line of abandoning the main grain producers located in the irrigated areas of the country that make up almost four million hectares, where the production of wheat, corn, beans and sorghum is concentrated. The lapidary expression was made public on Tuesday, November 12, with the ratification of the welfare scheme for self-consumption regions and the announcement of the reckless water plan, which proposes to agree, while supposedly saving money, to withdraw water from irrigated agriculture.
While denouncing that the nation’s “large” producers would not receive support, President Sheinbaum also announced the ratification of the Package Against Inflation and Costs (PACIC), which was extended with large grain and food importers. products that – since the previous government – have been exempt from all bulk import duties in exchange for supposed cooperation in fighting inflation.
When Dr. Sheinbaum refers to agricultural producers in irrigation districts as “big”, trying to justify the complete withdrawal of support by saying that they already “have their schemes”, she insists on reconsidering proportionality and reflects on the fact that the government remains tied to neoliberal principles. criteria that for decades, since the signing of NAFTA, have made it possible to dismantle the national agriculture, which is today in the process of physical and industrial disintegration.
There is room for the question: who are truly great? The President appears to suggest that “large” farmers are those located in the country’s irrigated agriculture, consisting largely of a population of small and medium-sized producers, including landowners, ejidataries and settlers, who engage in technical, yet unjustifiable, as a result of the signing of NAFTA in the mid-nineties and under the nickname “commercial agriculture”, were drawn into schemes designed for export, with advance set by an agenda in which they would ultimately be abandoned to the fate of the pricing policies set in the speculative grain markets competing on the Chicago Stock Exchange.
It is important to note that such a policy was not chosen, much less developed, by the manufacturers. They were created inspired by the ambitions of large agrifinance corporations, benefiting from food dependence, bankrupt producers and the destruction of the nation’s agriculture. All this with the consent and complicity of the neoliberal governments that developed the “schemes” that President Sheinbaum refers to when, in justifying the transfer of government to producers, she says, “they already have their schemes.”
As she denounces the thousands of national producers who will be crushed by the speculative dynamics of the Chicago Stock Exchange, President Sheinbaum signs PACIC that same day with a group of no more than fifteen representatives of the major corporations monopolizing grain imports. . and food. Enterprises have benefited from official free tariff policies and control the largest percentage of sales of wheat, corn, beans, sorghum and other grains. Achieving billions of dollars in income, which is shameful against the background of the bankruptcy of national producers and the growing inflationary increase in the basic basket of the population.
The confirmation that the Sheinbaum government remains tied, like the previous government, to “schemes” imposed by agri-finance corporations that have captured the nation’s food market comes at one of the worst times the area has ever seen. Mexican throughout the post-revolutionary period. As a result of these government policies, coupled with severe drought affecting traditional grain-producing areas in northern and northwestern Mexico, the agricultural sector is experiencing physical, productive and social disintegration.
In the southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa regions alone, due to the combined effects of drought and the deliberate refusal of the federal government, more than 700 thousand hectares of wheat and corn will not be planted. The impact on production is that Sinaloa will stop producing more than four million tons of white corn, and Sonora will stop producing almost two million tons of wheat.
The Sheinbaum government is making a bad bet by entrusting the feeding of Mexicans to large agri-finance corporations and turning its back on agriculture and the nation’s producers. It seems that the simplest alternative is to choose an alliance with the powerful interests that manipulate food markets, even if this means destroying the nation’s agriculture. However, this path leaves Mexico in a situation of great vulnerability to the disorderly and profitable behavior of speculative food markets. In such situations, hunger always lurks.
From the Yaqui Valley, Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, November 19, 2024.
Source: Aristegui Noticias
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
