‘We are not asking for the departure of the president (Guillermo Lasso), but we must tell him that he is electing bad ministers of agriculture’: Interview with a representative of the ‘Montubio People’

The leadership of the ‘Montubio People’ did not participate in the shutdown days of last October 26 and 27 promoted by the indigenous movement, after reaching prior consensus with the Guillermo Lasso regime.

Manuel Gonzaga, president of the ‘Montubio People of Ecuador’, recalls that if they participated in those of October 2019, but in the end there was no representative face of the coastal rurality in the meeting of October 13 of that year when the then President of the Republic, Lenín Moreno, agreed with the indigenous leaders and the decree was repealed 883 ending the fuel subsidy.

“Those who attended the meeting were the indigenous movement because no one saw a montuvio there and it does not mean that we are enemies, we are brothers of the indigenous peoples and nationalities, but if things are not discussed from the beginning, then now we are not going to support an agenda that does not have the clear content of our just claim, ”emphasizes Gonzaga, who ends his current term on Saturday, November 13.

The 35-year-old leader affirms that they go out on the roads to protest, but not to ask for the departure of the president (of the Republic). “Being democratic, we will always respect the institutions of the State. If the majority chose it, we have to continue with that cancer for 4 years ”, he emphasizes.

Gonzaga, who comes from a family dedicated to agriculture and livestock in El Oro, will seek re-election at the meeting this Saturday 13 to be held in Milagro (Guayas). His opponent is the 69-year-old Simón Vélez from Buenos Aires, in a day in which it is also planned to decide if the current Minister of Agriculture, Pedro Álava, is declared as an unwelcome person, or at least, he says, if he makes a call of attention.

How do you evaluate the public policies applied in the field of the latest regimes?

In the government of Rafael Correa, obviously, an absurd policy of handouts and alms, in which the population got used to that. They were years of economic stability, but we knew that in the future it would bring consequences. The only thing that these gifts caused was the oxidation of the soil due to the amount of chemicals that were used to convince the population that everything was fine. That was not the solution to the problems. Even the delivery of kits with subsidized urea ceased to be alms at the time and became a business of the leadership mafias that sold at prices that were convenient for small farmers. Then came the Moreno government, in which no minister served him. Neither improvements were seen for agriculture, the small farmer was run over, taking land away with high interest costs and the persecution of BanEcuador to seize, it is an intensive therapy that is maintained.

Why is there a reduction in the area cultivated with short-cycle transitory crops between 2002 and 2020, despite the fact that they are key to local nutrition?

At least 50% of the producers stopped sowing summer rice to plant corn and soybeans, since they still have the production of the first and second crops in the pile drivers. This has consequences. The bank does not give timely credit, that is why most small producers do not have the possibility of ending their cycle due to the lack of agricultural inputs and receive the money when they have lost fertilization, urea, and that entails not having a large capacity of production. To that we add the disrespect to the minimum support prices, the intermediaries buy them at the price they want. This is where the current crisis is generated, much more evident than the previous one. We don’t have 100% bike cutters. There are no resources, there is no credit, there is no technical assistance, there is no opening of the Minister of Agriculture (Álava) to seek improvements in the agricultural sector, this is where the small farmers’ economy goes into depression. In the midst of this, the Undersecretary of Marketing signs the importation of 120,000 metric tons of corn and those who planted that grain now want to hang themselves. We have overproduction of rice, of corn, because we must continue to put the weak economy of farmers in intensive care.

What agreements with the current regime are yet to be finalized?

We left the ‘Montubio People of Ecuador’ with the promise of President Lasso, who promised last October 8 to return the public institution of the montuvios with financial and administrative autonomy, which will guarantee that foreign investment is brought to do the endogenous economic development model that will allow for community agribusiness. Correísmo took that institution from us, President Lasso promised to return it this month, this must be fulfilled to the new authorities (in case Gonzaga is not reelected) because it is a single Montuvian people.

This means the allocation of state resources for a new institution in the midst of the fiscal deficit.

The general budget of the State still has the item of more than one million current dollars a year for the ‘Montubio Town’, that is, only under decree does this item have to be channeled for employee payments, for the logistics of our institution public and the minister in charge of that has to be from the montuvias bases. That person has to seek international resources to invest in the mountain communities of the Coast and the subtropical part, to create community agro-industries that allow us to alleviate rural poverty.

But from a non-governmental organization you can also get funds and execute projects. What would the difference be?

The difference is that it is a state portfolio with a person together with the president or whoever, the one on duty, who is going to explain what the methodology and knowledge about our peoples is to alleviate rural poverty. The ministers of Agriculture do not understand and do not know the social reality, that is why they last three, five, six months. It is possible that on Saturday, November 13, which is the National Congress, in which there will be more than three thousand legally constituted organizations that are part of the ‘Montubio People’, it is possible that they will declare it as a non-pleasant person of the agricultural sector of the Coast to the Minister of Agriculture (Pedro Álava).

Why would they declare him as persona non grata?

He has not done anything, he has arrogant undersecretaries who beat the table. He is arrogant himself. Only the Minister of Government (Alexandra Vela) and the President of the Republic provide solutions, the others simply do not know, do not understand, they are not interested in knowing.

But what has not been achieved with the Ministry of Agriculture?

We asked for a clear solution, we told them that the priority at this time is the rice cooker. In order to alleviate the Ministry of Agriculture, it has to buy the surplus of rice and reactivate the National Storage Unit, so that it receives that surplus of production. After inter-institutional agreements are made so that the prisons buy the rice from the associations of small farmers. That the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion deliver a sack of rice to each person who receives the voucher, the rest in cash. There are two alternatives. The only person who has produced results in the dialogues is the Minister of Government (Alexandra Vela).

Why did you decide not to participate in the protests against the regime of last October 26 and 27?

They are four and a half months of the current government. We are not asking the government to leave, we are going to respect democracy. We are going to support the institutional framework, but we must tell the president (Guillermo Lasso) that he is electing bad ministers of agriculture, who do not know the social reality … We are never going to join an agenda to destabilize or ask for the departure of a president democratically elected, but if we are going to take to the roads to pronounce how badly they do in different state portfolios. We hope that President Lasso will fulfill his campaign promises, with the agreements signed with us, but even if he does not fulfill them, we are not going to ask anyone to leave because we are democratic and we respect the institutional framework of the State. We do not join an agenda of the indigenous movement because simply our own agenda is not included there. We are strong enough alone to do our individual struggles. When other sectors invite us such as transport, the indigenous movement or other types of agricultural workers, they invite us to be a single agenda where ours is included in a global one, because we would sit down to talk and it may be that we reach an understanding, but while have a different agenda and democracy is not respected because we cannot include ourselves.

Support pricing policy is almost never adhered to. Are changes already required or what would be the best way to improve the marketing chain in favor of small farmers?

Involve large industry, small piles, small and medium farmers, unite them, reach consensus together. With the banana they met with the industrialists. They put signatures of small producers, but they did not include them on the table, that is a complaint that the National Banana Federation presented, of not respecting the assistance signature and they placed the support price that they wanted without consulting. The same happened with rice, the same happens with corn.

Who was behind the measure to authorize the importation of corn?

Large balancers who want to lower production costs. Instead of using Ecuadorian corn, they use foreign raw material that has less value, they make their balancing, they continue to sell it expensive to this balanced animal that is for pigs, shrimp for poultry. They ask for imports to lower their production costs, but they leave the small corn producers defenseless and that is where they cannot continue to compete and we cannot continue playing the game with the monopolies … They are not interested in anything other than the own benefit and not the collective benefit. We are waiting for the National Government to reverse this import measure. (I)