Popular Participation and Access to Food: Mexico's Community Food Councils 1

Harvest of Want: Hunger & Food S e c u r i t y i n C e n t r a l America and Mexico, S c o t t W h i t e f o r d & Anne E. Ferguson, eds., 1991, Boulder:Westview Press Popular Participation and Access to Food: Mexico's Community Food Councils Jonathan Fox Mexico's post-1982 economic crisis has made an already serious hunger problem worse. The combination of increased unemployment, reduced wages, and the withdrawal of consumer subsidies pushed increasing numbers of families to the brink of disaster. Even before the crisis, however, government studies found that nearly 42 percent of the rural population (approximately 9.5 million people) consumed between 25 percent and 40 percent below the Mexican standard of 2,750 calories per person per day (Montanari 1987, 52). Government spending increased dramatically during Mexico's 1978- 1982 oil-debt boom, and food programs were no exception. Generalized consumer subsidies continued even after the boom collapsed in 1982, partially buffering the first four years of economic crisis; the subsidies were cut in 1986. This study analyzes one of the few major food programs that survived the early 1980s—a massive network of village stores serving Mexico's most remote and poverty-stricken areas. Huge traditional consumer food programs had exclusively benefited city- dwellers, but the Community Food Council program was targeted specifically at the rural poor. This case of community participation in policy implementation shows how the internalization of social con- flict within government agencies can directly shape access to food. The discussion begins with an overview of the challenges Mexico's economic crisis poses for food policy and is followed by an analysis of the case.