translated from Spanish: Lack of support puts Guerrero peasants in crisis

Three years ago, life began to get more complicated for the people of Guerrero Mountain. In this area where according to the Coneval are located two of the poorest municipalities in the country, such as Cochoapa El Grande, 80% of the peasants had as their only form of subsistence the cultivation of the poppy, according to data given by the same inhabitants.
In the cold climate of the place there are no abundant crops of grains such as corn. What is good is coffee, but past federal administrations stopped supporting production, which fell into the state 88% between 2003 and 2016, according to data from the then Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (Sagarpa). The peasants opted for the poppy.
In the country, about 26,100 hectares are cultivated, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) 2017 Global Drug Report. Guerrero positioned himself as a leader in the national production, with about 60% of the total. In each of its 81 municipalities there were plantings.
Chautla, the village of Guerrero where children train to defend themselves against criminal groups
A peasant could earn about 35 thousand pesos per planting. The kilo of opium gum, a material that is extracted from this plant, was paid between 25 thousand and 20 thousand pesos, at least. Some planted twice a year. “The poppy was our salvation, although it barely gave us to survive, it wasn’t that we won much, but it helped us,” says a commissioner of the municipality of Acatepec and representative of the Council of Indigenous Communities of Guerrero Mountain, to whom we will call William, to meet your request not to use your real name. 
But prices were lowered by the fentanyl boom, a synthetic opioid that China produces at low cost and with more potent effects than heroin. The kilo of opium gum went down to 2 thousand pesos per kilo. “It went down a lot and we stayed at zero because that’s what we were holding on to,” Guillermo says. 
The price of the poppy falls
The villagers of Guerrero Mountain have another problem. Although President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last Wednesday, July 17, that “in those poor municipalities (those of Guerrero), children with disabilities are receiving their pension. They’re getting scholarships for poor, basic-level students, who are in high school. And they have already received their support from the Production for Welfare program,” the peasants say that it is not. 
“Prospera’s support for the children’s scholarships hasn’t come since January and no one tells them by when. He’s going to start another school year and nobody reports on it. What are they going to buy the uniforms, the tools? Other programs such as ProCampo disappeared and the resources for the peasants do not arrive,” says Martín Sierra, a local it in the municipality of Tlacoapa, separately. 
William endorses the above. He says that in Acatepec, ladies expect Prospera and there is no clear information about when it will come to them. The program’s stopped. Welfare Production doesn’t come either. “Only the pension for older adults and some scholarships for students arrives, but not for the majority.” 
Moisés Solano, president of the Commissioner of Communal Goods of Tepecocatlán, municipality of Atlamajalcingo del Monte, says that only 1,500 pesos received support for the ladies there. “The rest of the new federal government programs are not known. Support for the field comes to us nothing, except the fertilizer, which almost all of them already have here, only about 60 producers will be missing.”
Delayed delivery 
For 24 years it was the government of Guerrero that was responsible for giving the fertilizer to the peasants. But the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador decided that from 2019, the entrustand and the expense would do so by the federal government. 
On 5 January, the head of the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader), Víctor Villalobos, presented the priority programmes of the unit, including fertilizer. Although, like the other new ones in the federal government, it came out without rules of operation, allowing a more rigorous assessment of its target population, goals and results. The only thing that was published in the Official Journal of the Federation (DOF) was a series of guidelines. 
In these it is noted that the program is aimed at producers of maize, beans and rice living in areas of high and very high marginalization in the state of Guerrero. According to information disseminated by the federal government, the initiative is a pilot program that will then be taken across the country. 
Fertilizer beneficiaries use it in grains they harvest for self-consumption. Support for fertilizers is necessary in this area of the mountain because the cold climate does not allow crops to be taken, without those products, “and we are not enough to buy them. The corn, the bean we sow is for eating, that’s almost for us to sell nothing. If there’s no fertilizer, we won’t have food,” Guillermo says. 
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Farmers need to place fertilizer in early June, so that the plants develop well. In previous years, it arrived in April or May. “Now we’re a month late, because a lot of people haven’t received it and the milpa is already big. If we start putting it up to these days, it’s not going to be harvested anymore,” Says Solano. 
And is that the delivery of fertilizer this 2019 began until June 3. By the 24th, the governor of the state, Héctor Astudillo noted that Sader had delivered to the producers of the entity only 12% of the fertilizer that by this time had already been distributed in 2018.
Eventually, López Obrador went out to declare that by July 15, all the fertilizer would be delivered. It wasn’t like that. That day, Victor Villalobos presented the progress of the program, during the president’s morning conference. 
He had to admit that while 98.5% of the beneficiary producers (233 thousand 235) already had their vouchers (the voucher that accredits them as owners of the input), only 75% of this universe, that is: 175 thousand 948, had already managed to redeem it for fertilizer.
Famine risk
Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, has other figures. The activist says that from the beginning of the distribution there is little flow of cargo trucks with the product towards the mountain. 
He says only Zapotitlán Tablas has managed to have all the Input. “But not on the initiative of the government, but because for 22 days they blocked the Chilapa-Tlapa road. They were there on the Tlatlauquitepec cruise waiting for the trailers to arrive and that’s why it’s the only one of the 19 mountain municipalities that has all the fertilizer. In the rest, you’ve only received 30% or less.
The sheriff of Acatepec agrees with that. “Here less than 30% of the people who should receive it, they already have it. Villalobos pledged that by July 15, he would be dealt. Pablo Sandoval Almicar (the federal delegate) says they have the ability to distribute but the wineries, at least the five Of Segalmex’s here, are empty,” says Guillermo. 
The Commissioner also denounces the fact that, in that municipality, the municipal president, Ramiro Salvador Hernández, is giving him the fertilizer that has already reached “his people, those in his line, those who vote for his party, the PRD. And so is the federal deputy of the same party, Raymundo García Gutiérrez. Leaders even deceive people, they tell them he’s the one who sends the product.” 
In the community of Totomixtlahuaca, says the director of Tlachinollan, people decided to retain the municipal president of Tlacoapa and all his lobbying, when they were going to give the flag to start the delivery, because they realized that of a pattern of 1,200 beneficiaries, there were only vouchers for about 600. 
“They had them held for four days. That led to a negotiation with Jorge Gage (federal program coordinator). It was agreed that from 11 July six trailers a day with fertilizer would arrive to the municipality, but they have not complied.” 
Martin Sierra, a resident of the municipality of Tlacoapa, says that only the equivalent of two days has been delivered. “There is not half the fertilizer in the cellars that is required. So far we have not begun the delivery to the people, but we have already decided that we will supply those of the most remote populations and hope that the government will fulfill its word to send the rest, to send it as quickly as possible to the nearest ones where it is missing.”
Barrera says that as things stand, July will end and the fertilizer will not reach the producers. The activist claims that the delays and inconveniences are because officials are operating the program from the desk. 
“In Tlapa, for example, there is no interlocutor who meets the demands. They do it over the phone from Chipalcingo. There is also no scheduling of deliveries or coordination between the nation’s servers, Sader’s and Segalmex’s.”
Although Jorge Gage, federal coordinator of the Fertilizer Program, says that the delays are due to the particularities of the municipalities. In Acatepec he points out that the difficulties in the delivery are due to a confrontation between commissioners of rival groups. 
“That’s complicating everything. Today one of the groups forcibly took two trucks and took them to the Laguna Seca winery, when they were going for another. That violent agreements on the delivery schedule,” he says. 
Whereas in Tlacoapa, “there was a theme with the standard. There was a higher demand for beneficiaries. We agreed with them a larger number and the delivery began to flow. But now they don’t want any authority involved, they don’t even want the nation’s servant.” 
Collections are another complaint. Interviewees agree that farmers have to pay an amount to bring them fertilizer to their communities. The federal government delivers it only to the Segalmex warehouses, located in each area. Hence, municipal presidents are supposed to move him to the villages, but the truth is that they demand payment for this from the producers.
“That happens every year. Trailers can only go so far, because they can’t get in on the roads. We have to take the fertilizer to Torton. Villagers must pay for the transfer. They get charged from 100 to 20 pesos and people don’t have money. Although in past years they were charged more, 350 pesos per hectare,” Guillermo denounces. 
Gage points out that these charges come out of the federal government’s control. “We take the product to the Segalmex wineries, nothing more, from the transfer to the communities, they are supposed to take care of the municipal presidents, but some do not want or cannot.” 
The director of Tlachinollah also complains that the programs are designed without taking people into account. He says there were no meetings with the producers or the commissioners for the fertilizer thing. “There are improvements, yes, before the beneficiary pattern was designed between the governor and the municipal presidents to secure votes. Now the beneficiaries have to sign up for a digital platform, but there is no internet here and many do not speak Spanish.” 
Interviewees say that without fertilizer the milpa will not develop. On the mountain, people won’t even have grains for self-consumption. “In Acatepec, 50% of people have already gone to syllawhat syllalo, to the border, in agricultural fields, as day laborers, whole families have left. People have already sold their animals, everything they can to survive. We live a nightmare on the mountain.” 
Although Gage assures that there is no fatal date for the fertilizer to be put in the milpas. “The clerk said he will be here no later than August 6. Chances are we’ll finish days early. Even so, the fertilizer at the time it is applied will take effect.” 
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Original source in Spanish