Cristina Kirchner's plan to lower the price of food by 40%

In March 2014, FAO included Argentina as one of the countries that had reached zero hunger. Today, after almost four years of neoliberalism, with bread at 100 pesos and milk at 50, hunger has returned to the poorest segment of society. A little higher in the income pyramid are those who feed poorly and others spend an unprecedented portion of their income on food.

Without any regulation, the Argentines, who work here and charge in pesos, they pay for food according to the price of grain in Chicago and the price of the dollar. In addition to being victims of a production and marketing system each day more concentrated.

With a system of buying inputs at local prices, competition in manufacturing and central market subsidiaries across the country, prices can drop between 20 and 40%.

If a national and popular government comes to power in December, you will find a population in a situation of scarcitybut with high expectations of leaving the well. To be up to the task will be a key challenge for the difficult task of achieving political stability.

The production of wheat is enough to produce a kilo of bread a day for every inhabitant

In Argentina, cereals, oilseeds and cereals are produced. beef, pork, mutton and goat. Also birds and eggs; vegetables and fruits; sugar and honey In addition, fish, shellfish and crustaceans are caught. And the list is long. The extensive national geography produces hundreds of varieties of food. In 2019, total food production will reach 159 million tons, enough to feed 530 million people. But in Argentina, with a population of 44 million, nearly 4 million can not consume essential nutrients.

In 2002, I badembled for the first time the country's food production map, based on official data from sectoral chambers and support from food industry engineers. Faculty of Agronomy of UBA. The result was that the country had enough food for 330 million people. I updated it in 2007 and it reached 450 million. Today, it continues to grow and enough for 530 million peoplebut the country still does not administer these resources in a fair and efficient manner.

One company produces 78% of the country's yerba

Wheat production reached to elaborate a kilo of bread a day for each inhabitant of the country, but already many can not afford it.

According to a study from the Faculty of Agronomy of UBA, "Argentina produces the equivalent of 29 thousand calories per person per day. But it consumes an average of only 2,300. With that remaining, it can feed nearly 500 million additional people.

Canada and Australia, two major food producers such as Argentina, have partially solved the problem regulate grain marketing. They have created agencies that intervene in the market to obtain a stable price, which encourages production and does not generate an inflationary effect on their domestic markets. In the country, marketing is concentrated in a few cereal stores: Cargil, Monsanto and Bunge, who always win, because they are intermediaries and transfer to the domestic market all the weight of the price increase.

Food manufacturing is also concentrated: two companies, Molinos Río de la Plata and Aceitera General Deheza, concentrate 88% of the oil market. Only Molinos monopolize 78% of the yerba. Arcor produces 66 percent of the tomato puree.

40% of vegetable production is thrown

And the consumer also suffers from the concentration of marketing: 66% of the food is sold by five supermarket chains.

These few players, ten grain producers, five food factories and five supermarket chains at most, are responsible, in a deregulated market, for hunger in Argentina.

The paradox is that while hunger drives up food prices, small producers are disappearing. Agustín Pérez, owner of a tambo, he said The destape"When I was little, my grandparents treated the cows, refreshed the milk in basins and conditioned it in 20-liter jars, and with the car they took it on the train that In the train stations, the milkmen who delivered her house-by-house waited, and the profit was distributed: 60 percent for the slag and 40 percent for the slag. With the industrialization first, then with the arrival of hypermarkets, there remains only 10% of the selling price at tambero. In Europe, dairy producers receive 40%. "

A paradigmatic case is that of the vegetable and vegetable market. In the country, 11.2 million tons are produced40% are discarded due to lack of a supply chain that keeps products fresh. The same hypermarket chains as in Europe have invested in technological equipment allowing them to maximize their production, in the country, they throw almost half of what they buy. They do it because they pay so cheap vegetables that they get excellent profits. Production makes it small farmers living in poverty, or employers who use slave labor, recruited from Latin American immigrants.

The idea of ​​solving the problem with a price agreement is naive or hypocritical. This week before the announcement by the government of a pact, Molinos increased by 9% herbs Nobleza Gaucha and Cruz Malta and 5% Cook's oil. Arcor adopted a similar attitude, which resulted in a 12% increase in the range of canned products, lentil peas.

The law of the gondolas is very interesting, but insufficient. In addition, it can be wrecked in the context of a power relationship between supermarkets and smaller companies, which will allow the chains to turn the game around with the simple and old thing of delay payments until they are insolvent.

The next government should propose a food policy that immediately meets the needs of those who are now suffering from hunger. But also lower the price of the food basket for allso that those who spend a large part of their income on food today can allocate some of these resources to the purchase of other goods and services and thus recompose the national productive fabric.

The plan must consider the whole chain: supplies, manufacturing and distribution.

Supplies

Agricultural production increased from 60 million tonnes in 2003 to 120 million in 2015, despite the regulations. During these four years of jubilee, they reached only 130 million tons. So, this shows once again that The decision on total seeding does not depend on regulation.

L & # 39; state should impose quotas or purchase the necessary cereals directly provide the population with grains and oilseeds at a regulated price. You just need to sell 8 percent of the harvest. The mistake made during the previous administration was to focus on the regulation of wheat. Production has thus migrated to other crops and wheat has reached a historic low.

The country also needs corn to feed chickens and pigs, Sunflower produces oil and soy for the balanced feed of livestock, among others.

If an effective purchase system and seed variety incentives are put in place, producers will not be harmed and manufacturers will receive a basic input at a national price.

The production

The Gondola Act may be a good element for creating competition in the sector, but it is included in a set of rules that govern the entire chain. Supermarkets are too powerful. You must put them in competition and regulate their system of purchase and payment.

It is essential that the state produce the main foods in the basic basket

The state should also play a fundamental role in ensuring food sovereignty. Just as it would be ideal to buy the agricultural production needed for local production, it is essential that he produce the main foods of the basic basket. As we have already discussed whether the state should manufacture drugs for hospitals, we must now progress manufacturing 40 foods that provide essential nutrients to the most vulnerable sectors of the country. As exists in France and Canada, there are some in La Rioja, where the making of the provincial state coexists with the private one. State production and the search for private competition will lead to a sharp drop in manufacturing costs.

Marketing

Hypermarkets and supermarkets enjoy the country of a freedom that their country of origin does not give them. In Europe They can not be within 20 kilometers of urban areas. There are no department stores in Paris, London or Rome. In Japan, they are prohibited from selling fresh produce.

A study from the University of San Martín showed that for every job they generate, they destroy seven in small businesses. Limiting its power would drive down prices while would stimulate small business growth. The world is moving towards this because industrial jobs are scarce because of technological advances.

The state, which would intervene in the purchase of inputs and in manufacturing without damaging the private fabrics, should also be the protagonist of the marketing.

In France, there is a chain of state markets similar to the central Argentine market. They sell cheaper, but also They buy all their products in the areas where they are installed. Promote regional economies.

State regulation then has many virtues: lower prices, create jobs in small businesses and encourage the production of regional economies.

The plan does not present significant pitfalls in terms of resistance of affected areas. Well managed, Farmers should not feel the impact.

Food companies, which should lower their prices due to competition from the private and public sectors, would see their profits drop to unity. but increase the total revenues strong by the immediate increase in sales now at the lower value. They would surely devote themselves to strengthening the production of products outside the 40 that the state will sell.

Only large supermarket chains would lose their privileges. All aliens except one: Coto, the entrepreneur who paid the largest sum to money laundering. C & # 39; is to say, the biggest fraudster in the country.

The plan would be attacked from the ideological point of view by the strong intervention of the state. But the debate should not be too complicated to give: today, we produce food for 530 million people and four million are hungry.

With a system of buying inputs at local prices, competition in manufacturing and central market subsidiaries across the country, Prices can fall between 20 and 40%.