Morales and food prices...

I wanted to respond to Sohini’s blog post about people attributing the hike in food prices to the rains (rather than the rise in oil prices, or other possible reasoning) because it’s on many people’s minds here, where people's views on rising food prices are tied to their critique of – or continued hope in – Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales.

When I first arrived in Bolivia, the steep rise in food prices – particularly bread – was one of the principle topics of conversation. Some blame those increases on the Bolivian elite or President Morales. But more frequently, people talk about the rise in food prices globally -- sometimes attributing it to oil, other times not able to account for the 'source' of the price hike, but aware that it's a global phenomenon. And India is often cited as an example that this problem that is not particularly Bolivian – even if the efficacy of the national response is hotly debated.

I spoke with my friends Luis and Lourdes while sitting in the comedor popular [popular or community soup kitchen] of their church, “Light and Truth.”

Lourdes explained that a quintenal of rice, once under 150 Bs. (about US$21), had risen to over 390Bs. (about US$55) in the past months. Luis said he couldn’t account for what was happening. The dollar was on the decline, yet their family was worse-off economically. “I don’t know how to make sense of it. I can only imagine three possibilities: that what’s happening is a matter of the prices going up world-wide, that the empresarios [business men] are doing something to undermine the government, or Evo is hiding something from us.” Lourdes added, “The people say it’s the business people who are making the prices go up. Others say, like Luis said, that it’s prices at an international level. Others say it’s because of the cost of oil is going up. Others say the United States is doing it. They say the United States is stocking its food reserves because they know the prices will keep going up. Before we received flour from the US, through, what is it? CARITAS? But now they send little food aid….” (the debate over "food security" vs. "food sovereignty," and the accusations that food aid programs for undermine local, small-scale producers is the stuff of another blog).

Luis expressed frustration for the lack of a clear culprit. “This isn’t like ALCA [the Free Trade Area of the Americas], where you could identify the enemy clearly. Now it’s difficult to identify who’s at fault.”

For Luis, Lourdes and others with whom I’ve spoken, the rise in food prices is viewed as a threat to the stability of the Morales Administration, especially as social and political conflicts are on the rise and the President faces a vote of (no)confidence on August 10^th. Morales supporters fear that food prices will cut-short the kinds of structural changes they hoped would come from Bolivia’s first indigenous presidency.

Luis explained, “Evo is making enormous changes, and one supposes that we will enjoy the fruits of those efforts in another 5-10 years. But the opposition doesn’t want to recognize that he’s doing. The observe [critique] the smallest mistake that Evo makes…” Nevertheless, Luis admits that it is becoming more and more difficult for his family to make ends meet by pooling their resources, as the majority of their expenditures go toward foodstuffs. “Sometimes, I think I’m going to have to leave for the United States – maybe I’ll move to the U.S. and sweep the floor of a church there. I ask the brothers [fellow American evangelicals], ‘Is there not work [in your church]?’ So we’ll see the results of the changes Evo is making in another 5-10 years. Excellent! But we are suffering right now.”

Luis, however, remains supportive of Morales even as others grow vocally disillusioned. “We have to give a hand to the government,” Luis explained. “People are asking why the people are not rising up [against the Morales Administration]. If it were a different government, the people would have gone into the streets with their empty pots [ollas] to protest. But if we can endure the needs of the belly, then this government can endure. And that’s why we have to search for a means to survive.”

-- Susanita