SADER Wants to Eradicate Poverty Through Food Security

Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) emphasized the importance of food security and primary development to eradicate poverty and marginalization. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had previously addressed the problem and highlighted the importance of generating a new middle class to eliminate poverty.

Víctor Villalobos Arámbula, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said in an official statement that food security plays a predominant role in national security. He also mentioned that progress has been made through projects such as Production for Well-being, Fertilizers for Well-being, Prices Guarantee and Bienpesca, whose benefits go directly to producers. “This government has proposed to address the great social debt accumulated in the countryside and fisheries. Eradicating poverty and marginalization must involve all actors since it contributes to the economic and social stability of the country (...) and its successful future. We will have to settle outstanding accounts with the recent past,” said Villalobos.

A strategy to tackle the problem is through strategies that address problems such as migration, insecurity and violence from the root, while hoping that the solution will lead to opportunities and equity in the countryside and fisheries. Food security plays an essential role not just in these strategies but also in national security and in future development opportunities.

SADER also emphasized that there was great growth in agriculture, fishing and aquaculture during the COVID-19 pandemic because this sector did not stop operating. The sector saw record growth in food production during 2020 with 289.3 million tons that are expected to climb to 290.7 million tons this year, according to the Agri-Food and Fisheries Information Service (SIAP).

As previously reported in MBN, President López Obrador had said that his administration is trying to get millions of Mexicans out of poverty in order to build a new type of middle class. “Yes, we want a middle class. Of course, we want to get millions of Mexicans out of poverty to constitute a new middle class that is more humane, more fraternal, more supportive. All of this to lift Mexicans out of poverty, to improve their working life conditions but also to continue looking for the dispossessed, the needy and the marginalized.”