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Production for Well-being is the program that the largest number of producers from agricultural municipalities attend, as well as the one that supports the most peasant women. Six out of 10 beneficiaries are from indigenous communities and 34.5 percent of the total are women. 58.66 percent of the support is concentrated in the south-southeast.
This was stated by the Undersecretary of Food Self-Sufficiency, Víctor Suárez Carrera, at a press conference on the occasion of the Fifth Government Report, who highlighted reducing the inequality gap as an achievement of Production for Well-being. Although he stressed that “it takes 12 more years to achieve food self-sufficiency.”
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He said that in 1999 the Procampo program reported an index of 0.51 percent of inequality against the program of the administration headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which at the end of 2022 registered 0.11 in the same category.”The closer to 1.0 is the index , greater inequality”.
He stressed that Production for Well-being is a fundamental part of the government strategy that is committed to food self-sufficiency and the rescue of the countryside.
The project operates together with the Fertilizers for Well-being, Guaranteed Prices and Bienpesca programs of the Ministry of Agriculture and Sembrando Vida, of the Ministry of Well-being with direct support to small and medium-scale producers of corn, beans, wheat, rice , coffee, sugar cane, cocoa, honey and nopal.
In the same way, Suárez Carrera assured that this program advances with the Technical Accompaniment Strategy (EAT), in food self-sufficiency with agroecological transition, free of transgenics and glyphosate.
The undersecretary added that imports of this herbicide have decreased since 2021. In that year, purchases decreased by 75 percent, by 2022 they were 50 percent, in this 2023 they will only be 25 percent and by the next 2024, there will be no purchases of glyphosate in the country.
“Imports are gradually reduced and food production has not decreased. There are increasingly alternative ways of using glyphosate. There is nothing to fear. The use of glyphosate was decreased and production was not affected,” he stated.
He also said that due to the advances in the current agri-food policy, food imports decreased, which in 2018 was 45 percent. By 2022, food purchases abroad were only 35 percent.
“And despite the Covid-19 pandemic and two years of drought. It progresses gradually. It is not the goal, but progress is being made. More time is required for the Production for Wellbeing program to mature,” he said.
To reduce imports of yellow corn, he said that diversification strategies are being sought in the case of its livestock use and instead of grains, feed cattle with tubers such as cassava. This is how it is done in Colombia and Cuba.
He stated that there are 18 million tons of yellow corn that are imported from the United States and Canada, for the livestock and industrial sectors.
“Transgenic corn can be imported without any restrictions, but not for human consumption, but for starch and livestock feed and egg, milk, and meat production.”
“But it cannot be planted as protection for our native corn. It is forbidden to sow it, so as not to contaminate the corn seed that is kept in Mexico for human consumption with transgenic corn.”
Regarding the advances of Production for Well-being this year, he said that with direct support, one million 760 thousand 788 producers benefited and it is expected to close the year with two million 043 thousand 711 farmers.
Regarding the Technical Support Strategy (EAT), he commented that it is present in 28 states and 800 municipalities, defined in 36 regions. There are 1,220 technicians who develop it, who favor 400,000 producers in 4,815 field schools.
His achievements are to increase with his techniques the yields that go from 56 percent in the milpa; 28.6 percent in beans; sugar cane, 11 percent; and in cocoa 26.2 percent. In the case of coffee and milk seven percent.
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Finally, he commented that in this 2023-2024 period, 1,735 cooperatives and agroecological work groups are in operation. These are initiatives to promote saving and use of water and dedicated to handicrafts.
2023-09-05 00:55:20
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