Mexico can overcome hunger: FAO

El Universal 
By Mariana León
May 27, 2014

José Graziano, general director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, said that hunger can be eradicated from Mexico with a greater participation of society and less "political pettiness".

In an interview with EL UNIVERSAL, he said that in order to fight violence it is necessary to have a well-fed society.

Graziano, who was Brazil's Minister of Food Security under the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was responsible of applying the program entitled "Fome Zero" (Zero Hunger) in the South American country.

Can a country like Mexico, and others in the region with high levels of violence, exit poverty?

Extreme poverty and hunger are directly related to food security; when that is not guaranteed, conflicts emerge. The issue of tortillas in Mexico is very clear: when prices rise, protests, revolts and conflicts emerge. I think one way to calm society is having plenty of bread. Read more. 

Laura's Blog: NYT Portrays Achievements of Immokalee Workers--Can it be Done in Mexico?

This article from the New York Times takes a close look at the great achievements of the Florida farmworkers organization, Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Although the organization and its Campaign for Fair Food work on the national level, it is an experience that the Americas Program has been watching closely for years, due to its success with grassroots organizing for farm justice, an end to sexual harassment and defense of immigrant rights.

I visited briefly in 2008 and hope to make another visit to learn more about this experience and write more. Many of the workers affected are immigrants and the issues they address--immigration, worker justice and transnational food production--are at the heart of our Program.

Of course, a major priority is the possibility of obliging transnational retailers to apply the same or similar terms of fair and humane treatment to their suppliers here in Mexico. Walmart now controls a huge part of the food sales market and wields power over supply chains, and by extension, conditions in the production and industrialization of food.

Conditions for day laborers in the agroexport industry are among the worst imaginable in states including Sinaloa and Sonora. As we approach the harvest season, hundreds of impoverished, often indigenous, workers will travel north from Guerrero, Veracruz, Oaxaca and other states to work in the fields. Entire families will endure slave-like conditions in some cases, for a pittance. Several weeks ago, I wrote about a case of migrants allegedly kidnapped (a fact reported by the Mexican Army and later disputed by the Institute of Migration) and the grape harvest in Sonora.

In addition to the Fair Food Program, the CIW has developed an anti-slavery campaign that should also be a model for Mexico. To get an idea of the problem and legal efforts to confront it, here is a case from their website:

U.S. vs. Flores — In 1997, Miguel Flores and Sebastian Gomez were sentenced to 15 years each in federal prison on slavery, extortion, and firearms charges, amongst others. Flores and Gomez had a workforce of over 400 men and women in Florida and South Carolina, harvesting vegetables and citrus. The workers, mostly indigenous Mexicans and Guatemalans, were forced to work 10-12 hour days, 6 days per week, for as little as $20 per week, under the watch of armed guards. Those who attempted escape were assaulted, pistol-whipped, and even shot. The case was brought to federal authorities after five years of investigation by escaped workers and CIW members.

This is another example of how organized workers can compel the state to do its job of enforcing labor and human rights law.

The New York Times article titled, "In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress" details the organizing efforts and the achievements. It is a story that gives hope, as well as nitty-gritty advice on effective organizing:

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Not long ago, Angelina Velasquez trudged to a parking lot at 5 each morning so a crew leader’s bus could drop her at the tomato fields by 6. She often waited there, unpaid — while the dew dried — until 10 a.m., when the workers were told to clock in and start picking.

Back then, crew leaders often hectored and screamed at the workers, pushing them to fill their 32-pound buckets ever faster in this area known as the nation’s tomato capital. For decades, the fields here have had a reputation for horrid conditions. Many migrant workers picked without rest breaks, even in 95-degree heat. Some women complained that crew leaders groped them or demanded sex in exchange for steady jobs.

 Read more

McDonald's and Burger King Violate Labor and Human Rights

La Jornada
By Patricia Muñoz Rios
Americas Progam Original Translation

They were the first to apply hourly wages, a UAM study reveals. They use adolescents in temporary recruitment schemes.

México, DF. Payments of 15-16 pesos per hours worked, which mean fortnightly wages of 600 pesos on average; hiring as general employees, so that in a single day preparing food and washing bathrooms or floors causes constant accidents, especially falls and fractures; an obligation to sign blank resignations, are the working conditions of young people who work at McDonald's and Burger King.

Interviews conducted to these employees in an investigation by the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ProDESC), revealed that the working conditions of the young people employed  in these fast food restaurants, which have protective unions that ensure non-labor organization, are rarely checked by inspectors of the Ministry of Labor.

Monsanto and DuPont-Pioneer Threaten Food Security in Mexico (La Jornada, Mexico)

La Jornada – Original Article (Spanish)
Translated By Kyle Shepard

The International Day of Protest Against Monsanto, convoked by a range of civil rights and environmental organizations, managed to attract shows of support in hundreds of cities and more than 50 countries, including the United States, Argentina, México, Japan, South Africa, Germany and Australia, among many others.

Significantly, this massive social mobilization, practically simultaneous around the world, was not on this occasion addressed to any state or financial institution. Rather, It was against a particular entity that holds a hegemonic and illegal position in the field of food production and biotechnology. This is particularly the case when it comes to the development and commercialization of genetically-modified maize; the enormity in power and scope of which puts it in a position to threaten biodiversity and food supplies for entire populations.  Read more. 

Refuting Monsanto's lies - UNORCA

National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA AC)
Americas Program Original Translation

Olegario Carrillo, the national leader of the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) initiated the second day of the encampment – a collective fasting in protest of the planting of transgenic corn in Mexico, camped out at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City – by refuting the lies propagated by Monsanto.  The federal government could validate these lies if it approves permits for the commercial planting of more than one million hectares of GM maize in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, as requested by Monsanto and other transnational seed companies.

1. Transgenic seeds have higher yields than conventional crops. FALSE.
Based on the records of thirteen years of GM crops in the U.S. it can be said that GMO crops have not increased yields. The yields of corn and soybeans (principal GMO crops) increased significantly during the last 15 years but the cause was not the use of transgenic seeds, but conventional breeding and other practices such as agroecology [i].

2. Transgenic seeds require fewer pesticides. FALSE. 
Between 1996 and 2008 we used an additional 144 million kilos of pesticides that would have been used in the absence of GMO crops. This represents an average increase of 356 grams of pesticide per hectare planted with GMO seeds.  The use of herbicide-tolerant GMO crops or RR increased by 31% between 2007 and 2008 due to the rapid expansion of herbicide resistant weeds and superweeds, virtually unknown before [ii].

On Mexico City’s flat roofs, tiny gardens help feed families, provide an urban respite

The Kansas City Star, Tim Johnson

MEXICO CITY -- Climb to a rooftop and scan the horizon of this metropolis, and you’re likely to see nearby rooftops or balconies with vegetable gardens.

Urban rooftop gardening is on the cusp of a boom here, sponsored by a City Hall that sees gardening as a way to alleviate poverty, provide residents with their own healthy food and add some green to one of the world’s most populous cities.

In a program begun five years ago, Mexico City’s municipal government has given grants to 3,080 families to build gardens on their rooftops, sometimes sheltered by simple greenhouses to protect from nightly mountain chill and occasional hail. Many more families have attended urban gardening classes and struck out on their own to grow tomatoes, lettuce, chilies, scallions, guava, passion fruit and other edibles. Read more.