Del surco a la mesa. El Programa Nacional de Alimentación (PRONAL): crisis y contradicción política en la producción y consumo de alimentos, 1983-1988

Abstract

The National Food Program (PRONAL, for its acronym in Spanish) was a public policy whose objective was to face the food crisis that Mexico was facing in all phases of the food chain between 1983 and 1988. The aim of this paper is to analyze the operational framework and the projects proposed by PRONAL as a food policy in order to attend to the production and consumption of basic foods, as well as to argue how there were elements of the economic policy of the administration that did not allow its proper functioning. In addition, the article highlights that many of the efforts made by the government of Miguel de la Madrid only served as a mere speech in favor of food sovereignty and nutrition, while they did not signify a true political will to make structural changes that would benefit to the population as soon as they regulate access to food. This paper is based on official documents that detail the operations of pronal and on the press of the time where the advances and criticisms of the program were concentrated. The study contributes to expanding the historiography of food in Mexico by accounting for the changes in food policy and in the processes of production, transformation, supply and consumption of food that impacted the Mexican diet at the end of the 20th century, as well as the representations that were built of it in written and audiovisual media promoted by the State.