Rural and urban societies are bound to maintain the existence of bees, small insects and at the same time are fundamental to the survival of biodiversity, ecological balance, food, life and the planet, affirmed the Under Secretary of the Secretariat for Food Self-Sufficiency, Agriculture and Rural Development, Victor Suarez Carrera.
Leading the 49th Conference of the Food Self-Sufficiency Circle, organized as part of the commemoration of World Bee Day, Suárez Carrera regretted that what is currently unfolding is the anger of beekeepers and meliponictors who registered last March Due to heavy death. Campeche communities in the Chenes region.
On that occasion, he said, the communities of San Francisco Suk Tak of Holpechen Municipality and Cruzero Oxa reported the devastation of 3,365 beehives by 110 beehives, which was considered an environmental disaster in the Yucatán Peninsula with regard to bees. , and 80 beekeeping families suffered financial losses, with a loss of 13 million pesos.
They recognized that the death of the bees was due to exposure to pesticides and represented a “multidimensional violation of the rights of the Mayan people”. Beekeeping, he said, was “before the intrusion of industrial agriculture” in the Yucatan Peninsula.
He said the anger of honey producers is “so serious and relevant that we must turn it into a collective conscience, action and mobilisation”, as it is an issue that concerns farmers and everyone as the survival of the species is at risk. The possibility of guaranteeing agricultural provision for stake and food security of towns and regions.
He specified that there are three priority tasks to which urban and rural societies should commit themselves together with scientists, legislators, government and honey producers, noting that the challenge is “a national emergency, security and survival as a human species”. Is.
He said that the first task is to definitely ban the use of agrochemicals that kill bees.
The Under Secretary called for the implementation of all tools and methods that confront the production of food with pesticides, and on the work being done by the Ministry of Agriculture through the Production of Welfare Program and its Technical Cooperation Strategy (EAT) Cast light on. ) Promotion of agro-ecological transition in various production systems including honey.
The second task, he explained, is to develop a strategy to combat honey adulteration, a serious problem nationally and globally, based on the complaint and acceptance tools offered by the Federal Consumer Attorney’s Office (Profeco). Honey counterfeiting is undermining the survival and way of life of beekeepers and producers, as well as being a hoax for consumers and a public health problem.
And the third task, he said, is to stop deforestation, because loss of forests and conversion of land to industrial agricultural use reduces bee habitat.
Quoting the United Nations – an entity that declared May 20 as World Bee Day in 2018 – the undersecretary highlighted the role played by pollinating insects: “About 90 percent of flowering plants rely on pollination for reproduction depend on; similarly, 75 percent of the world’s food crops depend to some degree on pollination and 35 percent of the world’s agricultural land. Pollinators contribute not only directly to food security, but to the conservation of biodiversity are also necessary.”
He indicated: “It is not possible to envision or promote a future with efficient production systems to meet the planet’s food demand if bees do not exist in that future. And for bees to exist and persist, Agroecological transition requires great effort and leaving agrochemicals behind.Bury the so-called Green Revolution once and for all, as I have commented on previous occasions.
Legislative, Judicial and Commercial Actions
The conference was attended by the President of the Sustainable Rural Development Commission of the Congress of Colima, Alfredo Álvarez Ramírez, who insisted that the Penal Code be approved in the state in line with Article 196b to punish those who harm beehives. , and the punishment is doubled for those who kill them with insecticides.
The legislator promotes the first initiative of the State Agricultural Ecological Development Law in Colima, and in the framework of its discussion, in 10 forums in the municipalities of Colima, emerged the decision to change the Penal Code, since it was registered extensively in August 2022 30 million bees were killed in the municipalities of Armeria and Tecomán, and beekeepers expressed their claim. Those bees died from exposure to the insecticide “fepronil”.
