Agriculture deal will aid farmers

BY MAURILIO SOTO
The News


President Enrique Peña Nieto and farmers’ organizations on Wednesday signed a deal to define the agricultural sector’s annual budget and leave the agricultural land regime intact.

At the event in Manzanillo, Colima, Peña Nieto said that the federal government is committed to the agricultural sector and truly instituting an agricultural reform “understood as an agreement and the necessary consensus that allows us to make adjustments to public policy and different laws, in accordance with the experiences of all agricultural and farmer organizations.”

Peña Nieto said that 14 billion pesos ($1.1 billion) would be spent on the rural sector during 2014, 12 billion of which would come from the federal government.

“This amount is 21 percent higher than that of last year, and 134 percent more than it was when I took office,” Peña Nieto said, adding, “This confirms the interest and commitment that the federal government has to dedicating more resources and investment by means of coordination with local governments for the generation of activity in our country’s rural areas.”

He said that the 2014 budget of the Food Production Secretariat (Sagarpa) is 82.9 billion pesos, 10 percent higher than last year and the largest in the nation’s history. The objective of this, Peña Nieto said, is to guarantee that the Mexican countryside is more productive and sustainable, but at the same time profitable for those employed in the sector.

“Let’s stop making the countryside and rural areas a place where migrants leave from, one that lacks the gaze of the public eye, and make it the destination of investments and work for many young people,” Peña Nieto said.

He also calmed fears of a possible privatization of ejidal land — a type of communal land-ownership which was instituted during the initial post-revolution land reform in the 20s — by saying that the federal government has not and will not propose any initiative regarding the modification of the current land regime.

Peña Nieto also announced that Grupo Marítimo Industrial will spend 2.3 billion pesos on one of seven new tuna fishing boats that the company plans to have in operation. The operation of this boat, he said, should generate 10,000 new direct and indirect jobs.