In the first week of June, at least 30 countries that are major producers and exporters will begin to ban foreign sales of wheat, rice, barley, oil, corn, chicken, oats, millet, sugar, turkey, beef, lamb, goat meat, butter, lentils, pasta, potatoes, aubergines, tomatoes, onions, among others, to guarantee the food sovereignty of its own population.
The list of governments that have decided that their people do not lack basic foods and that domestic production is a priority is headed by Russia, India, Ukraine, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kosovo, Serbia, Tunisia, Belarus, among others.
And these governments do it because they know that inflation and the shortage of basic foodstuffs, together with the prolongation of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the blockade and mining of ports and maritime routes, the jamming of containers, the increase in fuel prices, the rebound of Covid and now monkeypox will continue to disrupt world trade in finished goods and raw materials for food for people and animals.
Faced with this world reality, the government of the Dominican Republic pins its hopes and puts large financial resources of the State to stimulate the import of food and raw materials, while in fact it postpones the recovery of agriculture.
Where will they import from?
The big question remains, where and if they can get it, at what price are Dominican speculators going to bring that food to the country?
The businessmen who have convinced the government to bankrupt agriculture will respond because they guarantee cheap food, which will come from Brazil, the United States, Mexico or Central America.
It is possible that for the rest of this year they will obtain them, but I assure you that they will be more difficult every week and much more expensive.
If the war continues, and Russia, Belarus and Ukraine cannot export grains to the world and less fertilizers, production will decrease not only in Brazil, which depends entirely on Russian fertilizers, but throughout the world, and the year 2023 – which coincidentally is pre-electoral in the country – it can be one of serious scarcity, famine, dissatisfaction and social mobilization, and very likely, violent episodes of looting and political instability.
more contradictions
In this same week several ministers announce more subsidies for 1,200 million to importers of flour (or wheat) and chicken farmers (to import food) seeking to prevent chicken meat, bread and pasta from increasing more in price.
And the SiembraRD plan does not have the capacity to produce corn, sorghum and fats to sustain Dominican poultry farming?
Any minimally informed person can realize that the sowing is in advertisements in the media, while imports continue to be stimulated.
the time of action
All of the above can be avoided if President Luis Abinader loosens his grip and provokes a change of direction that straightens the course, dedicating resources and personnel to national agriculture to produce food, abundance and profitability in the fields and stability in the market, not in the newspapers, social networks and radio and television stations.
I already said eight days ago that without a radical change in the main ministers and directors of the agricultural team of the government of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) and Abinader, there can be no recovery of agricultural production because they are all committed to the importers, not to the farmers. Does Abinader think that the officials who sank the farm, fired 700 technicians from the sector and cut credit to the countryside are going to recover it?
What agricultural producer who is not associated with them for business is going to trust those officials to get into debt, invest in the countryside and lose their properties?
The President must take sides: Find people who serve the country, replace the canceled agricultural professionals, return to the field with resources, supplies and equipment, or we will only see SiembraRD in the media, the growing poverty in the country and inflation galloping on spirited colt.
If the possible and manifest political commitments of President Abinader prevent him from “taking the bull by the horns” and making the government’s action in agriculture felt, prepare to see inflation flourish with scarcity in the markets and the probable indignation of the people, who when they take shape cannot be contained by militarizing neighborhoods and cities carrying rifles and bullets, but rather with rice, beans, eggs, chicken, pork, beef, oil, bread, coffee, milk and sugar, but above all with employment for people to earn the money to buy them.
The Dominican president is in time to face this serious problem to guarantee food, because the cost of imports -if they appear- plus the confusion of the fuel markets and the resurgence of Covid-19 here and in the world, can create a kind of perfect storm that no responsible man desires and no clever ruler would allow.
There have been words in the form of promises, now it is necessary for the facts to speak for themselves!