Gustavo Rojo Plascencia presents his Second Work Report as Chairman of the 2019-2022 Board of Directors at CAADES
Gustavo Rojo Plascencia presents his Second Work Report as Chairman of the 2019-2022 Board of Directors at CAADES
On March 19, the General Ordinary Meeting of the 2019-2020 Board of Directors at CAADES was held, where Gustavo Rojo Plascencia presented his second Work Report. The Chairman of CAADES was accompanied by Manuel Esteban Tarriba Urtuzuástegui, Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock on behalf of the Governor of the State of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz Coppel, Sergio Esquer Peiro, Secretary of CAADES, Norberto Bojórquez, Treasurer of CAADES and Manuel Isaac Luca Coronado, Leader of Rural Owners in the State of Sinaloa.
Taking under consideration the health measures and in compliance with the healthy distance protocols, the order of business was developed; which included the working program for this year.
In his video report, the Chairman of CAADES recognized the work of Eleven Rivers Growers within the farming of Sinaloa; as in recent years, vegetable production worldwide has had to change very quickly as a result of market demands, which set irreversible trends while complying with quality, food safety, social and environmental responsibility. That is why, since 2011, Eleven Rivers Growers supports horticultural companies by conducting weekly verifications, to ensure that they deliver fresh, healthy, safe and sustainable products compliant with the trade certificates required by domestic and foreign markets. In the 2019-2020 season, it was renewed in order to become a distinction that supports the Veggies From Mexico brand. Currently, 30% of the vegetable exports from Sinaloa are certified under this scheme. Also, 27 farming companies are actively involved in the program. As a whole, the farmers being involved in this program represent 26% of the vegetable exports in Sinaloa.
In the same manner, Gustavo indicated the importance of CAADES Trocadero, located in Nogales, Sonora, which since the 80’s, its 8 hectares of extension concentrate commercial and governmental entities related to the export of vegetables; providing services, counseling and information to perform the export process into the US market more competitively. Currently, Trocadero serves more than 250 groups of farmers and handles about 80,000 cargo containers per year. Also this year, together with SENASICA, the project for an international inspection point on plant health to import refrigerated and dried vegetables, as well as used farming machinery was consolidated.
With regards to Expo Agro Sinaloa, the outstanding farming event that CAADES holds every year, he stated that for over 30 years we have witnessed the world trends in technologies and services applied to the field. Expo Agro Sinaloa was born as a result of the traveling that Sinaloa farmers made to a various destinations in the world. They were the ones who, with a vision for the future, organized themselves to start with seed validation tests. During these almost 30 years, their main purpose has been to make novelties in machinery and supplies, solutions to mitigate drought, environmental-friendly fertilizers, funding options and high-level conferences, available to farmers of Sinaloa and Mexico, with the only intention that farmers are trained to produce more at a lower cost. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was not held in 2021; however, he promises to bring back a renewed and strong event in 2022.
Unquestionably, another essential part of CAADES is CIDH (Produce Research and Defense Committee in Sinaloa, CIDH). CAADES CIDH starts at the beginning of the 90s, with the purpose of defending the interests of farmers before the different governmental and private entities both domestic and foreign. Since 1996, every 5 years the tomato dumping suspension agreement has been negotiated, where CAADES CIDH has a major role in the process both to negotiate the conditions of agreements and implementation and tracking of the established commitments. Its role has also been important with the CNA in advisory to negotiate the trade agreements with other countries, mostly the T-MEC with the US and Canada. For this agreement, work has been performed in labor matters with the cooperation of AHIFORES, where CAADES CIDH is a founding member. Also, the Ministry of Economy is addressing the investigations on behalf of the US Government to Bell Pepper, cucumber and zucchini.
Also, in the video report he discussed the social and economic force that CAADES passes on to its over 30,000 affiliated farmers, small business owners which provide the institutional support to represent and negotiate benefits, supports and special conditions for farmers in Sinaloa. Throughout the 88 years the Confederation has lived, there have been times of uncertainty and great challenges, in the face of processes of accelerated change which have transformed Mexican society, its economy and the global farming industry. Given these circumstances, farmers in Sinaloa must stay together to deal with these challenges together, always acting in a logic and lawful manner, as this has allowed them to become lawful and strong, so for the current administration chaired by Gustavo Rojo Plascencia, it has been a fundamental premise to align the policies from CAADES into a vision of the future, by reinforcing what it has been done before and implementing the changing policies.
To close his report, Gustavo emphasized the challenges being faced by the farming sector over the last three years; being the current cycle the one which, due to adverse public policies, is ending with the development and productivity of the only sector which has yielded positive numbers on the last year.
He recognized the hard work of the chairmen from the 11 farmer associations and encouraged them to continue fighting together, as CAADES organizations, to influence on the changes needed in current public policies and keeping current such an important activity for Sinaloa and Mexico, as it is producing food.
We just turned 88 years of leadership as an organization, a heritage from men and women who gave their lives to improve field conditions.
For this reason, today more than ever, it is time for unity.
For this reason, today more than ever, is time for adding up.
To see the video report, just follow this link:
