Jose Tapia Espinosa

Governmental Policies Are The Necessary Solution for Food Insecurity

Introduction

Background

Prior to the Mexican Revolution, much of the agricultural land available was owned by wealthy domestic and foreign individuals having small holders possess minimal land. After the war for independence commercial agriculture was a new focus, prompting the government to use laws to break up much of the land held by the catholic church. However, in 1877 Porfirio Diaz would take office to acquire more foreign investment in Mexican agriculture, he inadvertently reinstated much of the land back to wealthy elites and thus instigated the Mexican revolution. The Mexican revolution resulted in peasant mobilization against the wealthy landowners which curated future land reform known as the ejido system. The ejido system catered to peasants as the government now controlled communal land with the intent of awarding them to individual farmers and peasants. This allowed peasants to restore land lost as well as begin to climb the socioeconomic ladder within Mexico. This background context is important as at the mark of the 20th century, government control would curate a cycle that ultimately did away with the original intent of the ejido system. Originally government had decided to do away with ejido system by reversing land acquisition back to elites and the wealthy. Then when a new government entered, they horribly attempted to restore this past, however, they inadvertently curated an alternate program that was riddled with corruption and internal system failures. That is because the new system for distributing land required governmental approval for peasants to acquire land from the elites and yet they never owned the land themselves. The failures included future ejidos granted with worse productivity than their wealthy counterparts, as well as much government support and research being given to commercial enterprises. Another later future governmental change would allow for the eventual ownership and sale of ejida land for the purposes of garnering a loan however, this did not fix an imbalance in productivity, nor did it solve the socioeconomic imbalance of the country. In fact, the lack of support towards ejida land and the system overall is one of the main contributing reasons for an increase in rural poverty in Mexico and for mass migration to the U.S as well turning Mexico into an important country of traditional diet items. Thus, to reiterate, because of governmental changes to the ejido system poverty has risen overall and so has the imbalance in agricultural land ownership which is evident in the number of families considered to be living within the lower class. This leads to another point on how effective governmental policy is key to establishing proper controls that can solve or create failures. This is crucial to realize as a new problem of food insecurity seeks to deteriorate the country of Mexico and current government-instated food programs attempt to resolve this issue.

The Health Implications of Food Insecurity

The traditional Mexican diet has taken a turn from historical intakes of maize, beans, and other home-centered meals that cater to low-income households.  (Long; Vargas, 2005). The health benefits that home-cooked food options like Maize provide improve the lives of the lower socioeconomic classes. For example, at a nutritional level maize is capable of reducing the chances of disease and is packed with minerals and vitamins. While the economic benefit is that at such a low cost, it can feed poverty-stricken homes at a relatively low cost. This is not only possible within Mexico, looking into Ethiopia for example, “It contributes about 29% of the calorie intake from total cereal consumption, followed by wheat and tef which contribute about 21 and 17%, respectively” (Jilo, 1-3). Maize is essential and was a major part of Mexico’s food system as well however, because of the ejido system and poor governmental choices Mexico has turned into a Maize importer. Once a “core” diet the irresponsibility of the government to allow for imports which consequentially mark up prices is disastrous. This core diet still contributes to a large portion of households and like in Ethiopia represents a food pattern that corresponds to low-income households [Figure 2] (Mintz; Sidney W., and Daniela Schlettwein-Gsell, 2001) However, rising food prices have made it economically difficult for low-income households to obtain this necessary core item, which reflects in poor health standards and the propagation of food insecurity.  

That is why, food program Opportunidades can help alleviate the poor choices which contribute to the health deterioration and food insecurity of the Mexican population. With traditional dishes and diets being affected by poor government decisions, food programs must offer healthy alternatives through a nutritional lens. As well as helping poor governmental history that has left those with nutritional inadequacy the inability to afford health services and begin anew. As previously noted, food security does not immediately correlate to the overall lack of food but can refer to the lack of consumption of nutritional food either by means or necessity. The educational inadequacy of nutrition within countries like Mexico reflects in the health deterioration of its communities. As it stands obesity and cardiovascular diseases are at an all-time high in Mexico. Currently, 74.10 of Mexico’s population suffers from this epidemic of inadequate nutrition which reflects elevated levels of obesity. [Figure 3] However, as noted this is a result of poor food decisions which reflect a nutritional transition and lack of attainability. Government programs like Opportunidades, help solve this through the use of conditional cash transfers. Conditional cash transfers differ from normal cash transfers as it invokes a requirement on communities to complete certain obligation prior to cash payments. This is integral to this system’s function as these conditions have the ability to improve the health of constituents. Opportunidades enforce required regular health check-ups and subsidies for nutritional education. (Skoufias, 8-10).  The health benefits are immense and alleviate not only food costs burdens for food security but also ensure that moving forward nutrition is also prioritized. Food insecurity is a multi-faceted issue and goes beyond simply being fed but requires the necessary understanding of nutritional eating for true food security. Taken from surveys around Opportunidades initial implementation in 2001 “Children in treatment households had about a 23 percent reduction in the incidence of illness, an 18 percent reduction in anemia, and between a 1 and 4 percent increase in height” (Gertler, Boyce, 1-2). However, as stated before, the use of cash transfers is not the solution but rather invokable “conditional” requirements that propagate real change. This distinction must be made because government adoption of traditional cash transfers may improve the current issue of health through however, will do little to promote an entire nutritional shift back to sustainable eating. 

Implications of Education for Solving Food Insecurity

This highlights another important issue in the Mexican and global government’s approach to mitigating food insecurity, which is transitioning from fixing the present to solving the future. Current, global food insecurity solutions prioritize current concerns of disproportionality by offering food programs and alternative solutions that fix immediate issues but ignore future reciprocation. For example, the United States offers SNAP benefits, which provide monthly subsidies for low-income households to support food costs. Although beneficial for families in the present it does little to improve their socioeconomic position and even forces a reliance on these benefits. Food insecurity thus continues to persist in future generations, as the immediate solution only helps to control the current state of problems. As previously explained, low-income households suffer disproportionally from food insecurity which stems from wealth gaps that burden households with increased food costs. The answer to this becomes the improvement of the socioeconomic status of these households, by improving education graduation rates through government incentives. Higher education is proven to generate higher yields of income, which is necessary to support food costs. According to the OECD “tertiary-educated young adults (25–34-year-olds) have a higher employment rate (81%) than those with upper secondary education (71%) and below upper secondary education (66%)” (OECD, 2). Education is vitally important and necessary for any household on average to have the ability to reach higher incomes and ensure job security. Within countries like Mexico which are urbanizing fast, employment will be dependent on the transition to services that differ from agriculture. The ejido system is proof that economic sustainability through agriculture is not possible and education degrees are necessary. Within Mexico, those who obtain a degree are expected to generate more than their non-graduate counterparts. [Figure 3] As stated income levels require subsidies as income levels are far too low. 

 Food insecurity is thus implicated to be the leading factor of school absenteeism globally and the introduction of a new problem of child labor. Like Mexico, Bangladesh suffers from poor graduation rates with similar problems of poverty and food insecurity being the leading factors. As stated, “Child labor is a very known word in Bangladesh where about 22.9% of the child laborer is doing life risky jobs to carry on the livelihood of their family (Sarker; Wu; Hossin, 2-3). Bangladesh is also not unique, but an indicator of the forced responsibilities placed upon children who cannot prioritize education. The income earned from this is never by choice but a reflection of low-income households’ lack of access to secured food. For example, within Bangladesh “…80% of earnings are being used for buying essential food items” (Sarker; Wu; Hossin, 3-4). This inevitably promotes a cycle of harm which has children leaving school to help afford basic food basic needs, but their lack of education will result in their own future kids at risk of food scarcity. What is the needed solution?

Mexico’s government program “opportunidades” provided a solution to this issue through its use of conditional cash transfers. This program not only influences the macro economy but as an economic program, it still is the best chance at mitigating food insecurity for the desperate communities. As the student attends school regularly the family is granted cash payments that reflect the attendance. This payment increases as the student furthers their grade level and offers scholarship grants for school supplies and educational necessities (Skoufias, 8).  As previously noted, cash transfers provide an immediate remedy to poor households by granting them the ability to readjust purchases given the extra financial freedom. However, the use of cash transfers within Mexico had the dynamic of granting cash transfers to families who ensured that their children regularly attended school. This requirement directly targets decreases in graduation and overall improving attendance by invoking an educational prioritization on families. As stated, “Greater weight on the poorest households within the population in poverty shows that the level of poverty according to the poverty gap is reduced by 30 percent whereas the severity of the poverty index is reduced by 45 percent. For comparison, an untargeted or uniform transfer is found to reduce the poverty gap by 28 percent and the severity of poverty by 36 percent. (Skoufias, 50). The use of “conditional” cash transfers differs from normal cash transfers and is surveyed to improve poverty levels at higher rates than standard cash transfers. Unfortunately, yes, conditional cash transfers play on the desperation of families, however, the long-term effects prove to be beneficial for these families. Average food cost differs depending on the area, however, this far exceeds the average pay of any low-income household [Figure  5].  These subsidies cannot be considered the only solution to food insecurity; however, they have the purpose of momentarily improving the current socioeconomic situation of families allowing for education to not be sacrificed at the cost of raising the immediate household income. The success in education retention is true because as stated, “The CCT program reached 6.2 million households and researchers found that during its implementation, educational attainment for children increased by about 10%” (Fernald; Lia C., Paul J. Gertler, Hidrobo, 4-6). Educational degrees are indeed necessary for decreasing socioeconomic classes that suffer from long-term food insecurity. Governmental policies like “opportunidades” finally make it possible for food insecurity to be solved long-term without succumbing to the catch-22 problem.   The global implications are immense as this can begin to be used in locations like Bangladesh which suffers from the same extremities. This program but in particular conditional cash transfers goes beyond simple anti-poverty and finally begins to solve multi-generational issues of inequality that invoke food insecurity.

Covid 19 and its disastrous effects on Food insecurity

Finally, this brings me to my last issue which has become the new leading battle against food security, Covid 19. Covid 19 has exasperated the already debilitating opportunities of low-income households by increasing food barriers through inflation. Reportedly, we can expect to see an overall increase in food insecurity in already endangered communities through increased food costs, and a debilitating agricultural sector (Rossi; Pablo, Vilar-Compte, Teruel, Pérez-Escamilla, 2020). Covid 19 not only increased overall food costs but has forced mass unemployment and along with social distancing measures, has disrupted food supply chains limiting access altogether. The result has been a re-engagement of unhealthy eating habits which lack nutrition and are terrible substitutes for a healthy diet.  For example, higher amounts of processed diets will be apparent risking yet again the health of communities (Gaitán-Rossi, Pablo, Mireya Vilar-Compte, Graciela Teruel, and Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, 2). Food insecurity is at new proportional levels of disaster. In an interview with a long-time native of Zacatecas city, I gauged their opinion on measuring food security within such a cutthroat economy. For context, my interviewee is Eded a 27-year-old college graduate living independently in Zacatecas, who rents and doesn’t have any other major expenses. I asked for their opinion on the ability to afford fruits and vegetables compared to cheaper alternatives. Their response (translated into English)

This is where the opportunidades program once again becomes vital and necessary once again. However, additional imposed requirements will be necessary to invoke a new system of home garden agriculture within low-income households. Home gardens fix three key problems, access, affordability, and freedom of choice. The implementation of home gardens will provide access to healthy alternatives, the ability to limit spending, and finally the freedom to decide on a sustainable diet. With the history of the ejido system smallholder land production was skewed against smallholder farmers due to their necessity to operate on the free trade market. [Figure 6]  However, home gardens would eliminate problems of profit and trade and would be a self-sustaining method of ensuring food security. For example, within places like Bangladesh, home gardens are the answer to meeting household demand and once cultivated still have the optional opportunity to increase household income through trade. (Ali, 2005) The necessity of conditional requirements will work the same as educational and health subsidies which would require households to demonstrate a measured growth in their personal home gardens for cash payment. This measure would ensure that households are meeting cultivation standards and are not fraudulently spending money. The additional benefit is that it would decrease food costs as an added garden will reintroduce traditional diets within Mexico that once prioritized Maize as the core meal.  The ejido system was an instance of poor government policy that inadvertently removed the ability for families to be farmland owners. If the current policy were to introduce home gardens, we could begin to see smallholder farmers once again making a resurgence with healthy farming. As stated, “home gardens provide easy day-to-day access to an assortment of fresh and nutritious foods for the household and accordingly those homes obtained more than 50% of the vegetables, fruits, tubers, and yams from their garden” (Galhena; Hashini, Freed, Maredia, 4). Conditionality is key to improving the disastrous consequences of covid 19.  This importance can be highlighted through a comparison of zero-condition solutions within the case study of the United States. During the Covid 19 pandemic, the United States implemented one-time payments, along with a huge allocation to unemployment. The intentions were good however, the response to rising inflation prices was never addressed and currently, inflation has pushed low-income families on the brink of collapse. As reported by the USDA, “In 2021, households in the lowest income quintile spent an average of $4,875 on food (representing 30.6 percent of income), while households in the highest income quintile spent an average of $13,973 on food (representing 7.6 percent of income)”. This once again reinforces a reoccurring issue; government solutions solve immediate concerns sacrificing the future in the progress. Currently United states inflation is at an all-new high and the cost of living is continuously becoming more and more difficult to maintain. Covid 19 was not expected, however, the expectation of the government to produce a beneficial solution is necessary for helping mitigate food security. Home gardens do just this and under a conditional requirement, widespread agricultural cultivation may become the new reality. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, food insecurity is a global issue that is far too multifaceted to be considered easily solvable. This is due to the many global differences that propagate drastically different concerns and expectations. However, what remains consistent is the necessity for government policy to implement strong systems of control which can help propagate food security. This is especially important as historically the ones who suffer the most are those part of the lower socioeconomic classes who do not have the leeway for government policy to fail. Mexico for example, has been able to accomplish this through its past use of the “opportunidades” program which relies on conditional requirements to motivate legitimate progress. Conditional cash transfers are key in solving food insecurity as not only is it proven to improve the health of communities, but it is also a government program that accounts for the future as well. Educational subsidies like the opportunidades program account for generational development, which eventually will increase the overall income of lower socioeconomic classes and help end the generational concerns of poverty. Conditional cash transfers also create a new opportunity for food scarcity alleviation through a new possibility of home gardening agriculture. Now more than ever, with the recent effects of Covid 19, new opportunities in agriculture are a necessity for sustainability, and by looking at opportunidades as an example, we can begin to make strides in agricultural accommodations as well. Opportunidades is by no means the perfect solution, however, by understanding what makes it systematically different from traditional government programs can we appreciate and see its usefulness and the effect government programs can have on obtaining food security.

References

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Long, Janet, and Luis Alberto Vargas. Food Culture in Mexico. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.

Jilo, Tadesse. “Nutritional Benefit and Development of Quality Protein Maize (QPM) in Ethiopia: Review Article.” Cereal Research Communications 50, no. 4 (2021): 559–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42976-021-00211-8.

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“Progresa and Its Impacts on the Welfare of Rural Households in Mexico,” 2005. https://doi.org/10.2499/0896291421rr139.

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 Galhena, Dilrukshi Hashini, Russell Freed, and Karim M Maredia. “Home Gardens: A Promising Approach to Enhance Household Food Security and Wellbeing.” Agriculture & Food Security 2, no. 1 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/2048-7010-2-8.

Mexico Imports of Corn (maize), Imports of Corn (maize) in Mexico increased to 606346 USD THO in December from 508549 USD THO in November of 2022. Trading economics website. Accessed March 14th, 2023.

Our world in data, “Poverty: Share of Population living on less than $10 a day 1984 2020. Accessed March 1st 2023

 Eded. 2023. An interview with Eded on March 10th. 16 min.  Zacatecas: Unpublished audio