Mexico City, November 5 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Rural organizations demanded Wednesday the Mexican government better redistribute the 2016 budget in favor of a “family, indigenous and small-scaled” agricultural model, while multilateral negotiations to be part of the Trans-Pacific trade deal (TPP), which excludes such a model, continue.

“The state agency PROCAMPO allocated almost 80 percent of its resources to the major agrarian companies of the country, which have hoarded the most fertile and largest land lots in the country's north and north-east, despite only representing eight percent of the rural population,” pointed out farm leader Moises Reyes Fausto, from the Central Campesina Cardenista in the state of Veracruz. 

According to a recent investigation by Fundar, small farmers represent 85 percent of the country’s production units, justifying a higher allocation of federal funds. However, most federal funds are almost exclusively allocated to producers that own between 20 to 80 hectares.
       
Reyes Fausto informed rural organizations will be mobilizing next Nov. 9-10 under the slogan “The Countryside Belongs to Everyone” to pressure lawmakers who are voting on next year’s budget, and recall President Enrique Peña Nieto's promise last year to reform agriculture.

The rural leader highlighted next year’s budget was less a matter of “quantity” than “quality,” “in order to overcome poverty and inequality in rural areas.”

In the state of Morelos, rural leaders from at least 13 organizations informed that over a thousand farmers will take over the Congress next Wednesday in order to voice their demands to the state lawmakers, who they claim are not really committed to supporting the sector, allocating an even lower budget than in other states.