SWOPblogger

Some more news from our friends at FNS. The first article is on a rice shortage near the border. The second is on migration demographics.

El Paso-Ciudad Juarez News

Living in the US-Mexico borderlands, residents grow up eating mouth-watering, inexpensive meals rounded off by beans and rice. At least that was the case until now. In El Paso, Texas, residents are stunned by sharp price increases that saw the wholesale value of a ton of Thai-produced rice shoot up by more than 100 percent since last January. At the retail level, rice prices increased by ten percent just last month, according to government reports. El Paso resident Estela Garcia is among locals who are expressing mounting concern about the availability and affordability of a culturally-defining food.

“But as we know everything goes up in this country, except wages. I hope that other grains don’t go up, like wheat, which is also a staple,” Garcia said.

In Garcia’s hometown, the international rice price crisis made local news last week when Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, announced it was limiting sales of jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice to four 20-lb. sacks per customer. Costco also reportedly instituted a similar local policy. According to a statement from Sam’s Club, the sales rationing was implemented in order to assure a steady supply of a basic product. In a place where enchiladas with beans and rice or burritos with beans and rice are daily vittles, the prospect of no rice was disturbing to some.

“I’ve never found myself in a situation where there is no rice,” said restaurant customer Arturo Duran.

Siria Rocha, however, is one person who is already looking at rice-free pantries. Rocha, marketing director for the West Texas Food Bank, which serves 100,000 needy people in 22 counties, said her organization has not received a new shipment of rice since last October.

; And in an increasingly multi-cultural city, the rice price hikes have jolted owners and workers at East Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants. The responses of restaurateurs have been mixed, with some trying to hold the line on prices while others are jacking up meal prices by a dollar or two, according to press accounts. “I cannot afford to run out of rice. Oh, my God. That’s like a Mexican restaurant without tortillas,” said Francisco Wong, the owner of three Chinese-style diners in El Paso.

Sam’s Club restrictions on local rice sales quickly became international news, with the online edition of the Mexico City-based La Jornada daily posting a story on its home page. Many analysts discount an actual rice shortage, attributing the sudden price increase to speculation in futures markets, where basic grains currently fetch hefty profits, as well as the strategic decision of countries like the United States to subsidize and promote the production of biofuels at the expense of crops produced for animal and human consumption.

Sources: El Diario de El Paso, April 24 and 25, 2008. Articles by Gustavo Cabullo. El Paso Times, April 25, 2008. Article by Doug Pullen and Maria Cortes Gonzalez. La Jornada/DPA/Notimex, April 25, 2008. KFOX News (El Paso), April 24, 2008. Pagina 24/Notimex, April 22, 2008.

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Immigration News

Adios, Michoacan

In the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacan, the historic migration of entire communities continues to define the landscape. And increasingly, the feet on the move belong to women. In a report to State Migrant Secretary Alma Griselda Valencia Medina, three state legislators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution ran down the latest migration trends. Of 100 migrants, 36 are women, according to the local congressional group, which consisted of state legislators Antonio Garcia Conejo, Gustavo Avila Vazquez and Sergio Solis Suarez. All three men serve on the Michoacan State Legislature’s Migrant Affairs Commission.

According to the legislators, the number of women entering the migrant stream is a steady increase from seven years ago when only one in five migrants was a woman. Sixty eight percent of the women from Michoacan who relocate to the United States are married and intend to rejoin their spouses, they said. The legislators expressed concerns to Secretary Valencia that the traditionally agricultural state is being depopulated, with the overall population decreasing by 400,000 people in the last six years. Their report identified 87 of Michoacan’s 113 municipalities as the areas most impacted by migration. In addition to the United States, a growing number of migrants are moving to cities in Mexico outside Michoacan.

The Bajio, Tierra Caliente and Costa areas of Michoacan were identified as the zones experiencing the greatest migration pressures. It was not immediately clear from the report if other motives apart from economic ones are compelling people to leave their homes. The Tierra Caliente and Costa regions, in particular, have been hit hard during the past few years by violence related to Michoacan’s deeply-entrenched illegal drug economy. Residents from other areas of Mexico afflicted with similar levels of narco-violence, such as Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez, sometimes cite insecurity as the primary reason for abandoning their hometowns.

Source: La Jornada, April 25, 2008. Article by Ernesto Martinez Elorriaga.

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Labels: FNS, Immigration, US/Mexico Border