Exploring food system debates in Colombia and Mexico

TABLE: As a way to kick off, what are the common misconceptions about Colombia and Mexico’s food and farming? 

Camilo Ardila: There is an idealisation of Colombia being a tropical country and imagining it full of diversified gardens and farms producing lovely exotic fruits and vegetables and coffee. We do have those, but it’s sadly not the norm; exports and staples are produced in monocultures of all sizes. 

Alma Palacios Reyes: I think we have a good recognition of our food culture, delicious as well as diverse. But we are losing this diverse diet – we now eat hamburgers and hot dogs because of the influence of the United States. But in rural areas, especially in Chiapas where I live, we can get some tortillas made by hand. There are many Mexico’s but our food systems are increasingly defined by our relationship to the north – roughly one third of the Mexican economy is linked to the U.S. and 84% of non-oil exports go to the states. 

TABLE: So, what are some of the key food systems debates in Colombia and Mexico, according to your research?

Camilo: In Colombia, there is always one that cannot be avoided; land. It is at the core of conflict and peace building in Colombia. We are one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of land distribution. About 0.5% of the farms are larger than 500 hectares but control 68% of the agricultural land in Colombia. On the other extreme, 70% of the farms are smaller than 5 hectares, and they only have 2.7% of the land. That connects with issues of deforestation, the types of crops that are grown and displacement due to more than 50 years of conflict. 

Another lively debate in the last 5 years is around diets, and specifically ultra-processed foods (UPFs). A year and a half ago, Colombia passed a law regulating some aspects of UPFs, such as warning labels and taxes for certain UPF products. Now, we are waiting to see the effects. 

Alma: The most common concern raised in our workshop with different stakeholders in Mexico is the effects of climate change. Coffee, bananas, mangoes, maize or any crop, are affected by these changes. Linked to that is the water crisis – Mexico exports double the amount of beer than any other country, but that means we are exporting our water through beer. The same for our red berries and fruit. In return, we receive corn, soy and beans. 

But, with the return of Trump, the main debate in Mexico is our relationship with the U.S. 

TABLE: They say it’s risky to be America’s enemy but even riskier to be its friend. 

Alma: Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which eliminated tariffs on imports between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, we have slowly lost our food security. Because of this, our producers couldn’t compete with U.S. producers of corn and we are now the biggest importers of corn after China. This agreement is also a big driver of the health crisis and increased exposure to ultra-processed food. Interestingly, our research found that this wasn’t a big concern of stakeholders, even if it is to me – Mexico overtook the USA as the most obese country in the world in 2013 because of the NAFTA diet. (NPR did a great podcast on this, if you’d like to find out more) 

Despite these impacts, tariffs would now kill us. So, as we speak, our President Claudia Schoenbaum is negotiating with Trump, but ultimately, we have to obey what Trump says. This is our big tension in Mexico. 

TABLE: Likewise Camilo, how does the export market shape the Colmbia’s food systems. 

Camilo: It’s an accurate word shape, because exports shape Colombia’s landscapes. Coffee is on the frontline, representing some 30% of exports in terms of value. The second one is palm oil which has increased exponentially in the last decades (Colombia is the 7th biggest exporter in the world, and largest in Latin America). Monocrop production has changed the landscapes in main two rivers in Colombia through palm oil in the Magdalena valley and sugar cane in the Cauca Valley.

The third one is sugar. We are exporting a lot of sugar, for consumption as well as biofuels. Sugar particularly links to the issue of biodiversity loss, land grabs from indigenous people and pollution. It’s mainly produced by big companies and traditional landowners who are also political elites in southwestern Colombia – they have the money, resources and political power to control the supply chain. For instance, in 2004, the government passed a law generating tax exemptions for biofuel production, and recently it regulated the obligation to include a percentage of biofuels in gasoline, benefiting mainly sugar and palm oil industries. But who pushed that? Well, these companies and landowners.

TABLE: What are some of the live conversations happening in policy circles? 

Alma: Mexico is the centre of origin and domestication of maize, and there have been different social movements such as ‘Sin maíz, no hay país” (Without Maize, there is no country) which seeks to protect the diversity of native maize. During the government´s six year term (2018-2024) a presidential decree was made to prohibit the importation of GM maize and the use of glyphosate. This ended in a lawsuit that the country lost because it violated NAFTA. Personally, I think this is another example of the abnormal power of the international companies, like Monsanto.

Recently the new president declared that she will propose a reform to the Mexican Constitution to prohibit the planting and imports of genetically modified corn for human consumption to Mexico. If this initiative is successful, Mexico would be a country free of GM maize. 

Camilo: A live topic is around environmental sustainability of production, and the different ideas of what this means – I mapped out the three different approaches in this essay; organic, agroecology and regenerative agriculture. This debate has increased a lot during the last five years from social movements and academia, and a couple of months ago, the government released a public policy for agroecology. There is a lot of hope. 

One other is how we can balance conservation with territories of people. We want to conserve some areas close to national parks and reserves, but those areas are being used by smallholders to produce food. 

We have some environmentalists who say, no, we don't think it’s a good idea to have people in these areas and the other extreme, who says no, but we need land for the people, land for producing food. It makes us think about the different goals of the food system. How can we reconcile food production and biodiversity while respecting peace-building and land access. It gets very messy for the government.

Camilo and Alma's reading list

Mexico: 
Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico

Farewell to the peasantry? Political class reformation in rural Mexico

Making sense of food system transformation in Mexico

Colombia:
The rifle and the title: paramilitary violence, land grab and land control in Colombia

Nature, Livestock & UPF: Reflections on food systems debates from Colombia

Colombia’s oil palm development in times of war and ‘peace’: Myths, enablers and the disparate realities of land control