Growing pains felt in Mexico
Government program with eye toward self-sufficiency faces greater sense of urgency
MEXICO CITY — The corn has begun to sprout on the hillsides south of Mexico’s capital, though it’s unclear whether these shoots will have enough water to grow or whether the farmer will be able to afford the increasingly expensive fertilizer.
What is known is that the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants Mexicans to produce more of their own food in order to move toward self-sufficiency in key products and to control prices for basic foodstuffs.
The president’s idea, which involves giving rural families cash payments to grow crops and technical advice, isn’t new, but the ravages of the pandemic, climate change and market turmoil created by the war in Ukraine have given it new urgency.
The government wants to head off food insecurity in a country where 44% of the population lives in poverty and where 27.5 million tons of corn are produced, but more than 40 million tons are consumed, according to government data.
While G-7 countries look for global solutions and the United States and development banks prepare a multibillion-dollar plan to ease food insecurity, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has welcomed Mexico’s efforts toward self-sufficiency in basic foods, but does not expect quick results.
“We do not see food prices going down, at least this year,” said Lina Pohl, the organization’s representative in Mexico.
The government hasn’t given any estimate of how much additional food it is aiming for, saying only that it wants to boost production on 60% of the 2.47 million acres in the program.
Brothers Arturo, Benjamin and Victor Corella, three retired teachers now farming family plots in Milpa Alta in southermost Mexico City, know everyone is having a rough time. They are optimistic because after only one year in “Sowing Life,” one of Lopez Obrador’s signature programs, they harvested 1½ tons of corn where they had previously only gotten one.
“The most important reason for planting is that (the whole family) has self-sufficiency in corn, not having to go buy tortillas, but rather try to do it ourselves,” said Benjamin. Now, he said, a government technician coaches them through their planting strategies, improving their yield.
Sowing Life was publicized as an ambitious reforestation program that aimed to plant nearly 2.5 million acres of trees producing fruit and lumber. It was also hoped that giving rural families a sustainable source of revenue and a monthly cash payment would keep more of them on their land rather than migrating north.
But the program also included a lesser-known option that Lopez Obrador now hopes to amplify. Some enrollees could choose to receive monthly payments to grow what in Mexico is known as the “milpa,” corn, beans and squash grown together as has been done for centuries.
The Sowing Life program counts with an investment of nearly $4 billion and some 450,000 participating growers, each of whom receives a monthly $225 payment from the government. The real number of people involved is far larger though, because to qualify each grower needs to farm about 6.2 acres — more land than many farmers have — and often entire families or even communities pool their land like the Corellas.
Despite the government’s use of the program to counter its less-than-stellar environmental record and doubts about its scientific underpinnings, few have questioned its social impact.
Housed in Mexico’s social welfare — not agriculture — ministry, it generates work and food by supporting farmers with technical advice and monitoring.