“What’s to eat?” “Come with me to the supermarket and we’ll decide together,” Mario answers his daughter. On the street, they pass in front of Malik’s fruit shop and the girl lets go of her father’s hand because she loves to observe so many colors, smells and shapes organized in pyramids of fragile balance, in wicker baskets, in wooden boxes… and because Malik always ends up giving her a bunch of grapes or a tangerine, depending on the season. But today, Mario calls her. This time they will walk much further, four blocks, because now that his unemployment is over, the food aid that he has received from the Government is a wallet card that he can only use at the assigned supermarket.
Until now, people in situations of food poverty were referred via social entities to food banks, where they periodically received a “bag of basic foods” purchased by the Ministry of Agriculture using European funds. This system, as we had questioned from different social movements, had a lot to improve. Food purchases, through public tenders, ended up benefiting only about fifteen large food companies that supplied the banks with milk, canned tuna, and jars of vegetables. Non-perishable food to facilitate all logistics, but which deprived its users of fresh food; food purchased with public money that benefited globalized companies when it would be fair to buy it from local producers who not only guarantee healthy food, but also contribute to caring for and improving our landscapes and environments; and food delivered in industrial warehouses or in parishes where, whether you like it or not, going to pick it up meant a certain stigmatization.
The pandemic and confinement made all these deficiencies even more visible, which seemed to be able to be reversed coinciding with a new European regulation regarding the use of said funds. For this reason, from the groups that defend food sovereignty, a lot of work was done to show viable alternatives and, together with some administrations sensitive to the issue, pressure was put on so that the essence of public funds for food aid responded to these key questions: not only fill stomachs, but feed by promoting small and medium-scale initiatives that take care of the territory and boost local economies.
But the remedy, approved on January 23, has been worse than the disease. The Government has chosen, at least for this year 24, to allocate the total budget that comes from Europe to the Red Cross, “on an exceptional basis and for humanitarian reasons”, according to the statement from the Ministry of Social Rights (now responsible for this). management) so that it is only this entity that launches the entire model known as ‘wallet cards’. With the argument of avoiding the stigmatization that we mentioned before and that families can choose which products to purchase, the card in question will allow the beneficiaries of the aid (families with minors in their care in extreme conditions of vulnerability) to have funds monthly to buy food in a chain of large supermarkets that will soon be announced, which in the process will make it possible to conceal a little those “hunger queues” that so scandalize public opinion.
So, because of that, Mario no longer buys fresh food from Malik’s store. Now, Mario has a card that forces him to buy food in that supermarket that he knows very well, pays its employees poorly, imports products from very distant places contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases, and issues misleading advertising. and, with their clearly speculative tendencies, they are responsible for the fact that, as FACUA recently pointed out, basic foods become more expensive by up to 875% between what producers are paid and what we consumers pay in these establishments.
Mario also makes calculations regarding what this new model will mean. If until now, with the funds allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture, they could negotiate and buy large lots of food directly from the agribusiness that participated in the tender, that is, they could make the most of the amount of money in terms of kilos of food purchased, The same funds allocated from Europe are now converted into amounts of money on the cards with which their users will buy at much more expensive supermarket prices. And he understands why, from now on, it will go from serving 1.3 million people to only about 70 thousand. Where will the excluded go? If the political will is to deliver cards instead of food, don’t you know that, in terms of fresh food, according to data from the Food Consumption Panel published annually by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, it is precisely the large supermarkets that offer the higher prices? Why not direct them to other sales channels, such as the traditional store or commissaries and cooperatives, where fruit and vegetables are more affordable?
But, in addition, Mario and his daughter will only have €130 per month on their wallet card to buy food and hygiene products. That is, a little more than 4 euros a day so that they can both eat and clean themselves. If the family is 4 people, they will have only 6 euros (1.5 euros per person). The curious thing is that the administration that has made these accounts is the same one that states that the minimum cost of a food basket is 6 euros per day per person.
Mario can’t figure it out, and he reflects: will my poverty enrich the fifth richest person in Spain, owner of Mercadona? Or will it enrich Carrefour, which, among other things, has been singled out for its relations with the state of Israel and for taking advantage of its colonizing advance? We’ll see who wins.
They are already back from the supermarket, with a lot of packages and a lot of processed food in their bags, but very little food, and as they pass in front of Malik, he, without showing any anger, whistles at the little girl and puts an olive in her mouth. Malik knows, because Mario told him, that where there is now a shopping center, there was a municipal market, where Mario ran the stall that he inherited from his parents. “But with competition from supermarkets, I had to close.”
Poverty enriches those who generate it.
