In President Sheinbaum’s morning meeting last Tuesday, the Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, Julio Berdegué, presented the cardinal axes of the strategy with which the government plans to address the country’s rural problems.
The economy, politics and rural society can be summarized in that Mexico, being an export power in fruits and vegetables, is also extremely dependent on imports of grains and oilseeds, which explains the poverty in which the majority of the peasantry lives.
Neoliberalism turned into rural policy the argument that as long as the agri-food trade balance was in surplus, foreign exchange from exports would allow what was missing to be produced here to be bought abroad and, thus, the country’s food supply was assured.
Consequently, fruit and vegetable producers had to be given priority support as generators of foreign currency, and not worry too much about boosting the domestic production of grains and oilseeds, crops that could be bought at low prices on the international market.
It is better to export strawberries than to produce corn, it was said when the Mexican Food System emerged in 1980, which linked what had to be produced with the popular diet, in order to reorient productive efforts to those crops; During the following two years, a practically immediate recovery was achieved in the volumes produced of corn, beans and other basic foods.
With the arrival of Miguel de la Madrid to the presidency of the Republic, that strategy was abandoned and what we have today is a more polarized rural economy than before; Only 8 percent of agricultural units have access to financing and only 3 percent to insurance (Grupo Consultor de Mercados Agrícolas, GCMA).
This minimal diffusion of financing is a reflection of an extreme polarity between some 300,000 agricultural units with large technical areas, with irrigation and high yields of high-value products, such as fruits and vegetables, and also white corn, and more than 4.5 million families. who cultivate very small areas, subject to storms, lacking not only financing but also technical assistance, certified seeds and, above all, channels for the marketing of their low harvests.
The economic results of this polarity make Mexico a power exporter of fruits and vegetables by selling abroad 32 percent of what it produces after satisfying domestic consumption, and an importer of 50 percent of the corn we need, 66 percent percent of the wheat that is baked or made into cookies, 81 percent of the rice we consume and 18 percent of the meat products we eat are of foreign origin (GCMA).
The social results are the lacerating poverty in which 49 percent of the rural population lives, according to the INEGI, and, furthermore, helpless in the face of the assault of organized crime.
The rural strategy of President Sheinbaum’s government puts forward contributing to eradicating extreme poverty. The five welfare programs of the last six-year term now seem to pay greater attention to their productive effects; Another novelty is that for the first time the working conditions of two million day laborers who, by definition, are temporary and lack any labor rights, will receive attention.
One of the keys to addressing social imbalances are guaranteed prices; Segalmex took care of applying them with impracticable criteria and unattainable purposes during the last six-year term; That agency—an icon of corruption—will merge with the Distribuidora e Impulsora Comercial Conasupo (Diconsa) and will be responsible for the purchase of corn and beans, while the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will be in charge of linking wheat producers. and rice with the industry that processes them.
Such operations will occur in accordance with guaranteed prices, which are the most powerful instrument to induce agricultural production – there is no better fertilizer than good producer prices – but Berdegué did not explain how they will be operated; It would have to be very different from how it was done last six years.
