Let them eat cake
"We are demanding the fall of prices or the fall of Calderón ... We are demanding food sovereignty. We are not going to eat at McDonald's or eat the crappy tortillas that Wal-Mart sells."
That's what one speaker at a rally by the Party of the Democratic Revolution had to say in Mexico City on Wednesday. According to Elizabeth DiNovella of The Progressive magazine's Blogressive Web site, many Mexicans are up in arms over a 10% rise in the price of tortillas in the past year. New President Felipe Calderón says he will boost imports of corn, but he doesn't want to restore subsidies to the industry that were dropped after NAFTA went into effect.
Tomasa de Jesús, a working-class housewife, told Novello "I'm here [at Wednesday's rally] because this government is creating anti-social policies that will starve us to death. The rich don't eat tortillas. But that's how we the poor survive. It is our principal sustenance," she said. "But the rich eat bread. They don't eat tortillas because they make them fat."
Read the whole story here.
Comments
If Mexico had any respectable leadership(they never have) they would plant corn as far as the eye can see and subsidize it. Three things would happen. Their people would have their tortillas, their people would come home to work, and they would reap the profits as corn becomes a big player in the world's food and fuel supplies. Maybe Halliburton could run it for them.
Posted by: Brian Murray | January 20, 2007 8:22 AM
Higher corn prices may be here to stay. The big push for corn ethanol in the U.S. has a lot more to do with boosting corn prices than achieving energy independence. And with Mexico's oil reserves peaking, they can't afford to go back to subsidizing corn prices. As usual, it's the poor who end up on the short end of the stick.
Posted by: Mike D. | January 20, 2007 1:51 PM