Article: Food Sovereignty in Latin America: Confronting the 'New' Crisis

DURING THE FIRST MONTHS OF 2007, Mexicans took to the streets to pro- test a sudden doubling of the price of corn tortillas, the mainstay of the national diet. Government officials and industry blamed the increase of corn prices in the global market on the widespread promotion of ethanol produc- tion from corn as part of the agro-fuels initia- tives being promoted by then President George W Bush and President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. While speculation on corn futures to feed ethanol plants did contribute to the price rise, it later turned out that hoarding and price speculation by private grain-trading corpora- tions like Cargill, which benefited from Mexico's earlier ...

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