Production for Welfare moves away from moving Mexico towards food self-sufficiency

In the midst of the second year of the pandemic and the speeches of the authorities' search for food self-sufficiency, beneficiaries of the Production for Welfare Program (PPb), businessmen and experts point out that the support provided is not enough to boost grain production in the country, despite the increase in this resource granted by the federal government in 2021.

With the arrival of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the ProAgro program (formerly Procampo) was replaced by the Production for Welfare program, chosen to be one of the priorities of the current administration.

The transfer received by small-scale grain producers (with less than 5 hectares under storm water) grew from 1,600 to 2,000 pesos from 2020 to 2021; and that of medium-sized producers (between 5 and 20 hectares) from 1,000 to 1,200 pesos in the same period.

“The amount they give is very small... it doesn't represent even 10% of the total costs of producing corn in a good storm zone,” said Sergio Barrales, former rector of Chapingo University.

The program promotes the cultivation of grains such as corn, wheat, beans, and others. However, 1,000 pesos of a supply are enough for a package of fertilizer known as 18-46-00 and one of urea; when producers need at least two packages of the first and three of the second, per hectare, he explained.

“So, just so you see, more or less the support covers about 30% of the cost of fertilization,” said Barrales, who produces beans and corn, among other crops, in Cuapiaxtla, Tlaxcala, and has 14 hectares under the program.

Pánfilo Hernández, a member of the civil association Grupo Vicente Guerrero in Españita, Tlaxcala, agreed on the program's low support in relation to the costs faced by producers.

Hernández highlighted that the prices for harrows, weeding, herbicides, harvesting and hauling the costs of one hectare are around 5,000 pesos; an amount that easily doubles after the costs of tilling, shelling, packaging and moving the product to the market.

The cost of producing grains varies in Mexico. For example, in Quintana Roo, the costs of preparing the land, planting, fertilization, pest control, harvesting, sorting and packing to produce corn in the Spring-Summer 2021 cycle amount to 15,632 pesos; while in Guerrero to 21,470; and in Chiapas to 23,423 pesos, according to the Agricultural Cost System of the Institutional Trusts in Relation to Agriculture (Fira).

In total, the PPb expects to reach 2.3 million producers this year.

“Attention in itself can be a good universe. More than 2 million producers is not negligible, but really the support they give us is low,” said Barrales.

Unlike grains, PPb offers higher amounts for other crops. The hectare of amaranth is paid in 3,000 pesos; cocoa, coffee and honey in 6,200 pesos; and that of sugar cane in 7,200 pesos.

Until March, the dispersion of support for this program reached 1.8 million people, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader).

At the end of the first quarter, Sader highlighted an increase of 90% in annual dispersion, an amount of 11,342 million pesos delivered via bank deposits and Telecommunications of Mexico (Telecomm). Among the beneficiaries, 84% were small-scale and at least six out of 10 are producers from the south-east of the country.

Thus, with the arrival of the electoral ban in April, 10% of the beneficiaries would have been left without support.

Jorge Alberto López, President of the Federation of Cooperative Societies for Agricultural Production and Services Los Carapoas, S.C., said that in El Fuerte, Sinaloa, corn producers are still waiting for payment.

“The Sader always leaves a percentage of 10 or 15% (without dispersion)... we are already on top of the 2020-2021 production, we are about to arrive at the end of May and we are going to start harvesting,” López complained.

Food self-sufficiency

The PPb is linked to the National Development Program (PND) through the objective of Mexico achieving food self-sufficiency.

“What we want first of all is for us to recover food sovereignty, for the country to have its own capacity to produce its own food and not depend on the outside world,” said Víctor Suárez Carrera, Undersecretary of Food Self-Sufficiency at Sader, during a press conference on August 26 last year to talk about PPb at the National Palace.

However, in the eyes of the National Agricultural Council (CNA), this program is not aimed at triggering the long-awaited self-sufficiency that the current authorities claim to seek.

“Really what has been happening in the execution of this program is that they are basically supports that are aimed at trying to help the income of these small producers, but that it is not focused on how to increase productivity. So, to think that with a program that this could be a trigger for achieving food self-sufficiency, we see it as a long way away,” Luis Fernando Haro, director general of the CNA, told this media outlet.

On February 8, 2019, the private sector signed an agreement with the federal government to collaborate in achieving food self-sufficiency by boosting primary production.

The director of the CNA stressed that there is no country in the world that is self-sufficient in all products, but that it is possible to reduce dependencies on product imports, if correct production measures are applied with a medium and long-term vision.

Medium and large Mexican producers face their peers in the United States who receive funding from the government of that country and food self-sufficiency is seen as a matter of national security, Haro said.

“We must not forget one thing, producers who compete with producers from other countries are medium and large producers, really, small producers don't really have the volume of production, I'm not saying that we should stop supporting them,” said Haro.

“Here (in Mexico) what we see is that the government's focus is simply on support programs... We don't really see that this program (PPb) is going to have any influence in making Mexico less dependent on food products,” Haro said.

A report on the Agricultural Situation of the Center for Studies for Sustainable Rural Development and Food Sovereignty (CEDRSSA) published in mid-2020 agrees that small and medium-sized producers lack productive potential, while highlighting that they generate 6 out of 10 contract and family jobs in the agricultural sector and provide 40% of the national supply of basic grains.

Failures in the program

The PPb has not been exempt from allegations of malfunctions in its operation.

In the delivery of the Supreme Audit Office of the Federation (ASF) of 2020 on the data collected in 2019, it is pointed out that the program presented deficiencies in its design and implementation, which risk meeting its objective.

The main flaw, according to the agency, is that the diagnosis of PPb did not precisely define the public problem it seeks to address. In addition, the design was not “aligned with the objectives of the PND, the guidelines and the MIR (Matrix of Indicators for Results)”, nor was it determined that the program should have operating rules.

On the other hand, the beneficiaries of PPb can at the same time be beneficiaries of other programs. The ASF found that 12,902 were beneficiaries of the Price Guarantee Program and 1,647 of the Youth Building the Future Program.

“Although there is no explicit restriction between these programs in the operating guidelines, it is not established that they can be complementary, so it is necessary that, in the subsequent operating rules, the restrictions or complementarities between the various subsidy programs be clearly defined, in accordance with the criteria of objectivity, equity, transparency, publicity, selectivity and temporality,” said the ASF.

Despite design problems, the PPb budget has been increasing with the current administration, going from 9 billion pesos in 2019 to 13.5 billion in 2021. An increase of 50% from one year to the next.