Victor M. Quintana S.
l
he average commercial farmers are riding again. Last Tuesday the 14th, they organized the National Agricultural Strike that extended to at least 15 states of the Republic, especially in the north, center and west, the main grain-producing regions.
They evoke that great movement that they led in the 90s, against the first neoliberal disaster that took away a good part of their productive assets and assets in a few months from the banks with the alibi of expired portfolios. Then they organized in El Barzón to defend their right to continue producing and living with dignity. Now, the National Front for the Rescue of the Mexican Countryside (FNRCM) blocks roads, toll booths, and railways with producers and machinery. Their main demands: remove basic grains from the T-MEC, from the Chicago Stock Exchange, fair guaranteed prices, financing for their crops.
The current crisis differs from that of 30 years ago, although it is also the result of neoliberal agricultural policies. The 1982-2018 governments and the entry into NAFTA in 1994 favored the growth of large agro-export companies and the subsidies from the Mexican State deepened rural inequality, concentrating on large producers and marketers.
The first government of the 4T decided to redistribute support to those who had been most forgotten by neoliberal governments and launch programs such as Production for Well-being, Fertilizers for Well-being, Guaranteed Prices, Sowing Life, which benefit more than 2 million producers in poverty. However, medium commercial producers have been left out totally or partially, although 90 thousand of them are supported with the subsidy of the Special Electricity Program for Agricultural Irrigation, the PEUA,
But this has not been enough to raise the production of basic grains to the levels required, nor to keep this important segment of products and producers afloat. They themselves state it: they cannot compete with the uncontrolled entry of basic grains from the United States, highly subsidized by that government, with prices set by the Chicago Stock Exchange. Furthermore, the costs of inputs, spare parts, machinery and equipment always rise higher than grain prices. Rural financing is scarce and very expensive: they give as an example that much higher interest is charged for a tractor than for a luxury car.
The capacity of the federal government and state governments to acquire basic grain crops at guaranteed prices that are profitable for the producer is very limited and by itself cannot regulate the market, which is why large hoarders, marketers and industrialists continue to obtain obscene profit margins to the detriment of producers and consumers. All this can lead to the bankruptcy of thousands of average producers, the increase in rentism and concentration of land in large producers and the hoarding of oligopolies and oligopsonies, the loss of the already deteriorated food sovereignty, the invasion of transgenic seeds, with the usual damage to biodiversity and national sovereignty.
Sader has acted with diligence and an attitude of listening to the mobilized producers on the ground. He has not disqualified the protests and has begun to dialogue with some groups, such as the corn farmers from the Bajío states and the west of the country.
Dialogue is always welcome, but it will soon run out if it does not translate into changes in policies and programs, which in this situation is not easy: how to exclude basic grains when it is feared that in the renegotiation of the USMCA Trump will seek to open markets for their grains when China and other countries have closed them due to their aggressive tariffs? How can we sustain sufficient guaranteed prices with such coverage of volumes and producers that they can reorganize the market when the federal government has such a tight budget? How and, above all, where to subsidize interest rates, equipment, machinery, agrochemicals and energy so that commercial producers are viable and national production of basic grains increases?
In dialogue, the government and producers must locate solutions, even if they are partial, and implement them. For example, one way to lower production costs is the one that Colombia has used for the pharmaceutical sector and Mexico for textiles in the import market: a law that establishes maximum reference prices for inputs and minimum purchase prices from the producer. No one could sell the inputs or charge interest above X percentage of the reference price or import grains below the reference production cost. This would not imply a direct disbursement from the government, but it would imply a great capacity for concerted efforts from very diverse sectors.
You may or may not agree with some of the organizations or leaders of the average producers who are now protesting, but they deserve the full attention of the government and society. It is not just about their income, many public goods are at stake: food sovereignty, the country’s genetic heritage and the strengthening and well-being of rural society.
In memoriam, Rubén Villalpando, fighter for justice and truth.
