Senate approves Food Emergency law
Lawmakers on Thursday approved the Food Emergency Law that paves the way for more resources to be dedicated to the fight against food poverty. Its passage comes with the countr y gripped by recession and economic crisis, with more than a third of Argentines now living in poverty, according to official data.
The law was passed unanimously in the Senate on Wednesday night as social organisations and labour groups demonstrated outside Congress.
“If in Argentina, which produces food for more than 40 million people, we have to go out and vote on a food emergency law, it is clear that the social crisis is very, very big,” said protester Omar Giuliani, as he stood Wednesday outside the gates of Congress.
It took the Senate less than four hours to pass the legislation, which the lower house Chamber of Deputies had approved the previous week with ease (also without opposition but one abstention) , after the ruling Cambiemos coalition indicated it would back the bill.
Two Formosa senators – Radical Luis Naidenoff and Peronist José Mayans – briefly crossed swords as to whether hunger had been worse under this government or the previous one enjoying parliamentar y majorities and a commodities boom, but all 61 of the 72 senators present ended up voting in favour of the bill.
Mayans claimed that 80 percent of emergency funding went to Buenos Aires City and blamed “selling food abroad to 400 million people worldwide when 15 million Argentines go hungry.”
Senator Fernando “Pino” Solanas gave a figure of five million Argentines “eating once a day” while María de los Angeles Sacnun (Santa Fe-Victory Front) singled out foreign debt and capital flight as the culprits.
EXTENSION
The bill extends the national food emergency terminating at the end of this year according to Law 27,345/2016 until the last day of 2022 and stipulates an “emergency increase” of at least 50 percent in the current nutritional aid budget, equivalent to about 8,000 million pesos (US$135 million).
Officially, Argentina has had a food emergency declared since 2002, when the country was in the midst of a dire economic crisis. The legislation, however, must be renewed. The current law extends the declaration until December 2022.
“The face of poverty challenges us all,” declared Senator for Formosa Luis Naidenoff, a Radical and the leader of the Cambiemos coalition bloc in the Senate.
He said that provincial and local governments are also responsible for addressing the crisis, not just the national government.
“Obviously, the law is a palliative [measure]. The only solution is for the country to grow,” countered Carlos Caserio, a senator for the opposition Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist).
Though Cambiemos lawmakers eventually decided to back the opposition-led bill, some have expressed views that the crisis is being oversold, including President Mauricio Macri’s vice-presidential running-mate Miguel Ángel Pichetto.
Speaking earlier in the week, the Peronist senator described the crisis as “an exaggeration.”
“If it’s with the goal of achieving social calm, well, OK. But they’re not going to leave the streets,” he said.