The Fertilizer Well-being program will be expanded to national coverage

Nestor Jimenez and Emir Olivares

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, January 5, 2023, p. 9

The fertilizer delivery program for Well-being, which operated in 2022 in nine entities, will be extended to national coverage this year. With this, by reaching 823,000 small producers, mainly corn, beans and rice, it will benefit 2 million peasants in the 32 states, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader) and Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) announced yesterday.

We are very pleased that these programs reach all regions of Mexico, even the most remote townssaid President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who stressed that thanks to this strategy, production grew among the beneficiaries.

When presenting a balance of the program that started in 2019 in Guerrero and was extended last year to nine states, the head of Sader, Víctor Manuel Villalobos, explained that an investment of 16 thousand 684 million pesos is projected for this year to reach the whole country.

He pondered that in its first phases, of the universe of beneficiaries, 41 percent were women and 55 percent indigenous. In addition, in Guerrero production grew by 190 thousand tons between 2018 and 2021. The impact of this program, which will have this national coverage, will be measured in the increase in grain production and the data will be available by March 2024.the federal official pointed out.

For his part, the general director of Pemex, Octavio Romero Oropeza, indicated that the state company generated 61 percent of the fertilizer required for the program in 2022, but it is projected that by the end of 2024 it will produce the necessary 100 percent.

With this purpose, an investment of 15 thousand 100 million pesos is made in the rehabilitation of different fertilizer plants.

After the federal administration acquired Agronitrogenados (now Pro-Agroindustria) and the Fertinal group in the past six-year overpriced and in deteriorating conditionin the present administration managed to repair this damage for up to 216 million dollarshe stressed.