To whom it may concern.

Today is a really slow day for work.

It is giving me time to think; and one of the things I am considering at this moment is that we live in changing times.

The newscasts all over the weekend (both in Mexican and American) warned of the food crisis that exists in the whole world. Oil prices are soaring and less food is available at the prices we had a year ago. Wheat had increased the customer final price in 130%, vegetables in average had increased their price 65%, and oil has duplicated its price in the last 12 months. What does it mean?

I lived in an agricultural region in the north of Sinaloa. Tomato, corn, zucchini, chili, sugar cane, beans, wheat, soy, sorghum, safflower (cártamo in Spanish), cotton, etc. Everything was set to grow in irrigation soil. A drought that lasted for five years and the government control prices drove many people relying on farming income into poverty. You would hear this in my youth: “here, there is always food for everybody”; now is not true.

My parents being teachers did not depend on money from crops. However, both my grandfathers were farmers. My parental grandfather died when my father was 13. His brothers took the lands and the animals he had for them because that was the way it was at the time. The last of them died rich; and miserable at the same time, since not even his sons and daughters liked him. My maternal grandfather moved from his hometown at the river to where he lived to where my parents live now. In 1976 during the big peso devaluation (from 1 dollar equal to 12.5 pesos, it went to 25 pesos and eventually to 3000 pesos; when it was decided to reduce the quantity of zeroes in the currency [for your reference, now the exchange rate is 10.5 pesos or 10500 old pesos per dollar]) he lost the land he owned because of bad results and a credit in dollars.

Many people do not grow anything, they rather rent the land; and it is risky to try. You need to have money to survive 6 months, in addition to the money you need to invest in seeds, machines and people. If you get to harvest anything (cotton for example is really risky, any rain will ruin the crop) you have to fight for the right price. People do not want to do the labor work required, you will get only 6 dollars a day for a day that starts at 4:00 am and finishes at 4 pm. They rather go to work in a factory (you get 12 dollars a day), or move to a big city (like Tijuana) or the US (where you will get 80 dollars a day).

So, I know second hand (because I’ve never done it) about the difficulties to produce food. And I can understand some of the costs associated. And I do not want to get worried, but I can not help it.

When my wife interviewed me for a job in Tijuana (I lived in Guadalajara those days); she asked me what I would be doing 20 years later. The standard answer was: “I will be the president/plant manager/top executive/something of the company”. My answer was: “I will be back in my hometown, growing vegetables, retired of engineering work”. That captivated her; but to tell you the truth, I am not so sure of wanting to do it anymore.

See you around.