Mexican government presents 'Cosechando Soberanía', a program to achieve food self-sufficiency

* The program seeks to increase national corn production to 25 million tons per year and bean production to 1,200 tons.

By Canal 11 | Mexican Press Agency

President Claudia Sheinbaum presented the strategy ‘Cosechando Soberanía’ (Harvesting Sovereignty), which aims to attain food self-sufficiency.

This program, which is part of Plan Mexico, seeks to stop importing crops that make up the main daily diet of the Mexican people, such as corn, beans, and rice, and instead produce more of these products domestically.

“Increasing the right to food sovereignty and self-sufficiency means being able to guarantee the constitutional right to food in our country,” said Julio Berdegué, Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER).

The food production targets for 2025-2030 as part of ‘Cosechando Soberanía’ are:

·        Corn: increase from 21.3 million tons to 25 million tons

·        Beans: increase from 730 thousand tons to 1.2 million tons

·        Rice: increase from 221,500 tons to 450,000 tons

·        Milk: increase from 13 million liters to 450 million liters

·        Liconsa: increase from 687 thousand liters to 1.3 million liters

The head of Sader, Julio Berdegué, highlighted the five most important social programs for achieving food self-sufficiency:

· Cosechando Soberanía (Harvesting Sovereignty)

· Alimentación para el Bienestar (Food for Wellbeing)

· Fertilizer, productivity, and Liconsa programs (Liconsa is a parastatal company of the Mexican government, dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) 

The investment for these programs, he said, will be MXN 53.791 billion this year and MXN 83.760 billion in 2030, supporting 30,000 producers. The goal is to increase the number of beneficiaries to 750,000 producers in the next five years.

Related: Cloud Juice: Mexicans fight climate change with water harvesting