The federal government will create a social enterprise to buy Yucatán peninsula honey at fair and guaranteed prices, President López Obrador said on Saturday.

Speaking at a community event in Temozón, Yucatán, López Obrador said the idea came from Governor Mauricio Vila, who told him that Yucatán is the biggest honey-producing state in Mexico but producers receive the lowest prices in the country for their product.

“. . . According to the information that the governor gave us, there was previously a company that bought honey and there was a guaranteed price but things went badly for the company and there is no longer a guaranteed price . . . That’s why this injustice is committed [in Yucatán] . . . There is a lot of monopolization, a lot of price-fixing,” he said.

“We’re going to create a social enterprise that will buy all of Yucatán’s honey at a fair price, a guaranteed price and we’re going to seek to do the same for Campeche and Quintana Roo, all of the Yucatán peninsula . . .” López Obrador added.

A government collection center will be established where beekeepers can take their honey for sale, he explained. Private buyers “won’t disappear,” López Obrador claimed, but they will be forced to pay producers better prices.

The government has already established guaranteed prices for corn, beans, wheat, rice and milk as part of a plan to support farmers and help Mexico achieve food self-sufficiency.

López Obrador’s pledge to pay fair prices to honey producers came two days after the head of the National Science and Technology Council announced a bee conservation project on the Yucatán peninsula to counteract the threats apiculture faces from pesticides and genetically modified crops.

Source: Expansión Política (sp), Milenio (sp)