Pathways To Your Plate
During a month-long road trip through Mexico, independent radio journalist Roberto Nieto and a university researcher Lili Eskinazi will research and document agricultural issues surrounding food production, covering a wide range of topics from landownership and the economic challenges facing subsistence farmers to the realities of operating small farms and large-scale agribusiness. Interviewing men and women farm workers, government officials, and farm owners, they will explore the little known labour that goes into the food that we buy in our markets and eat from our plates everyday.
Written by
Lili
March 25, 2009
In considering the ins and outs of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), the question we arrive at is: “Who Benefits?” It is undeniable that Canada benefits from the SAWP, as the program provides Canadian growers with access to a reliable, abundant, and cheap labour force. Beyond these advantages, the Canadian government also benefits by withholding money from the workers’ paychecks that is seldom returned to them in the form of social benefits. Also, the Canadian economy benefits from workers’ consumption during their stay in Canada. Juan (fake name), who I interviewed in Providencia de Perez explained:
“Many people bring back half the money they make in Canada. I bring back gifts for my family, clothes, things for my brothers, toys for the children. These are things that we lack here, and I suppose it is cheaper there. Something that’s old—I but another, something that doesn’t work anymore—I do calculations of how much it costs here, how much it costs there. Its good for the Canadian economy—many people return with their suitcases full of clothes…”
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Here is another audiojournal with some thoughts about our experiences in Oaxaca.
While there, we learned of a reality we knew little about: internal migrants in Mexico. While migrant workers heading north get almost all the attention, there are thousands of people migrating inside mexico–from the campo, or countryside, to urban centers or to work on agro-industry farms. Sometimes they are entire families, sometimes they are children as young as five.
On a parallel front, as men migrate more and more, women are left behind to take care of the house and children. For women who migrate internally–many of them indigenous–they face unique and difficult challenges. Click on the link below to hear more…
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Written by
Lili
March 22, 2009
In the case of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), any benefits for Mexican development that occur as a result of income earned in Canada cannot be considered in complete isolation from the grave psychological and emotional toll of the separation between workers and their families—both on the workers who go and on the families left behind.
Juan from Providencia de Perez described the separation from his family as the most difficult part of participating in the program: “The only sacrifice is not seeing the family. We can talk to each other on the phone but it’s not the same thing. Sometimes they send pictures—parties that happen here, the kids coming out of school. When they send us souvenirs from home, this is the most beautiful.”
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Down the Mexican coast, through Oaxaca, then Chiapas, and into the state of Vera Cruz and back to Oaxaca.
While on the road in our rented compact car we ended up on the most indirect road to where we wanted to get. We must have misread our map…
We traveled through Vera Cruz, a state that feels tropical, coastal, hot and humid. For the first part we found small banana plantations, then we ended up on a winding road through spectacular mountain ridges. I’m sure few people ever use this road, though it seems some better known artists, hippies and the like, came through here in the past to try psychedelic drugs. Here is a small unedited audio piece with some of my thoughts.
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Written by
Lili
March 15, 2009
On both sides of the border, the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) loves single mothers. Officially, the entry requirements for the SAWP are based on the criteria of health, agricultural background, marital status, number of dependents, financial need, and age. While gender does not factor in as an official selection criterion, I would argue that since the inception of the program, gender has and continues to play a significant role in an applicant’s admission into the program.
Prior to 1989, Mexico’s Ministry of Labour and Social Planning did not recruit women for participation in the SAWP. When the state did begin recruiting women, the program was only open to single mothers (widowed, separated, or divorced); the assumption, of course, being that if women are married, it is their husbands that will go to work in Canada. While this policy was abolished in 1998, and men and women’s requirements now appear the same on paper, recruitment officers at the Secretaria continue to give preference to single mothers.
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Driving around the country, we noticed that all around Mexico there are these amazing new toll highways. Most are extremely expensive by Mexican standards, and even by northern standards. Going from the southern town of San Christobal, in Chiapas, to Mexico City costs roughly 100 US dollars in toll charges. Sometimes we seemed to be going down these sparkling new roads that no one even seemed to know about, so few cars were on them.
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Written by
Lili
March 12, 2009
As I read a New York Times article about the tragic school shooting that took place in Germany yesterday, I feel disturbed by the reluctance of the media to call it femicide, even though this is what occurred. Of the 13 people killed inside the school building by the troubled teenage boy, nine were girls and three were female teachers. The shooting is a tragedy in itself, but is even more alarming when we look to the greater global crisis it represents. This is a complex crisis, multiple in its oppressions; gender-discrimination and gendered violence is one pervasive manifestation of these oppressions. In considering the increased presence of women in the wage labour force worldwide and particularly in Mexico, what jumps out at me is that this space reflects the same system of oppression that contributed to yesterday’s massacre.
While the neoliberal argument would posit that the incorporation of women into the labour force is unarguably positive, my scepticism about neoliberalism makes me peel away the layers in search of a different story. Does the incorporation of women in wage labour necessarily signify a step in the right direction of gender equality? I would argue that it does not because there exist sexually discriminatory structures that dictate the ways in which women are allowed to participate—generally in underpaid jobs that are seen as “women’s work.” Examples include domestic work, factory labour, or handling delicate produce, such as berries or tomatoes
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We drove down the pacific coastal road of Mexico going through the resort towns of Zihuantanejo, Ixtapa, Acapulco, Puerto Escondido and others. This is a beautiful, picturesque road. Sometimes you come by miles of abandoned beaches. Were it not for the military trucks, it might have been more inviting. As we mentioned before, Guerrero is the most militarized state in the country and it seemed like we had front row seats to witness it.
Check point after check point, we drove even more to the South. We made it to the state of Oaxaca. Here, more beaches but also more migrants workers. I had in mind to go meet Francisco, a worker I had met in Canada several years ago. At the time he had a serious eyesight problem, brought on he would say by the pesticides used in the greenhouses where he used to work. He was slowly becoming blind. Back when I last saw him he could still see and never mentioned this problem to his employer. He was of course in fear of not being able to work and tried to tough it out until the end.
I think I saw him the last summer that he came to Canada. That must have been five or six years ago.
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Written by
Lili
March 6, 2009
Driving down the coast, we passed one… two… three… no, more! Military trucks loaded with men playing the part—in costume, lethal prop in hand, waiting for their cue. Guerrero is the most militarized state in Mexico, infamous for its drug cartels and gang wars. The situation here is especially tense these days, after the decapitation of eight military officials in Chilpancingo at the end of December. There are checkpoints every 10 kilometers, and the military is on edge. Driving through is a must, though, if we intend to make it to Oaxaca and down to Chiapas.
We were planning to stop for the night at a small beach called La Barrita. Pulling over to ask for directions at a local bar, a man came out and asked for clarification, “Are you looking for la Barra or la Barrita?” He advised us to go no further, warning that many people had been killed in la Barrita—we were better off setting up camp there in la Barra.
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The Canadian government recently published a travel advisory for Mexico, warning of the high levels of violence in the northern border area. As I read La Jornada today, there are reports of three people decapitated in Tijuana, and another five executed in Chihuahua. In the past year, nearly 6,000 people have been killed in violence related to the drug war. In the past month, around 800 members of the police force have been put under criminal investigation for presumed involvement in narco trade and trafficking. In response to the worsening crisis, 50,000 officers from police and army forces have been deployed around the country.
While much of the coverage focused only on northern border areas, the increasing wave of violence is sweeping the entire country. What is rarely mentioned in news coverage is that the state of Guerrero—beachside and touristy—is the most militarized part of the country. In this area, wealth and poverty exist side by side. The state of Guerrero has some of the poorest rural inhabitants. In some areas, entire villages migrate, or even abandon their homes to struggle for survival elsewhere. It is probably also the state with the highest levels of migrants, including migrants under the age of eighteen. 20% of the population over 15 does not know how to read, 25% of its inhabitants do not live in a house that has access to the sewer system, 30% do not have clean water, and half of the state’s inhabitants live in overpopulated housing
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