Hunger is on the rise in Milei's Argentina

CECILIA VALDEZ

""I always came to help at the soup kitchen, but today is the first time I've come to take food because work has slowed down." Silvia (59) is a nurse, lives in the Altos de San Lorenzo neighborhood of La Plata and is part of the queue that forms for a plate of food, a scene that is repeated in the different soup kitchens of the popular neighborhoods of Argentina. According to a recent report by the Social Debt Observatory of the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA), poverty reached 55,5% of the population at the end of the first quarter of this year, or what is the same, about 25 million people, and indigence almost 18%. 

Hunger advances

With the arrival of Javier Milei to the government last December - which applied a brutal adjustment that has its greatest impact on the most vulnerable population - almost all the variables of the economy worsened. Milei, who during his campaign had promised that the adjustment would be paid for by the caste, or the most privileged sectors, has done nothing but attack the most disadvantaged, including retirees and millions of people who have been dragging along situations of vulnerability for decades. Many of these people had been supported by social plans of the State, but one of the first measures adopted by the current government was to defund and stop supplying the soup kitchens, which caused many of them to close their doors and others to survive as best they can.

The current government's policies, which aim to put an end to the intermediaries who act as bridges between social organizations and soup kitchens, have cut off funding for these neighborhood support and containment spaces, and have proposed a series of audits that supposedly seek to unravel corruption schemes. In the meantime, it was revealed that the Minister of Human Capital, a super ministry headed by Sandra Pettovello, was holding six million kilos of food in state warehouses - many of which were about to expire - and this unleashed a scandal that almost cost the minister her job.

Although the court ordered the immediate distribution of food, this has not yet been carried out. On August 30, federal judge Sebastián Casanello carried out an operation in the Ministry of Human Capital, with the aim of collecting information on logistics, stock and delivery dates of food. The measure was taken within the framework of the case initiated by the social leader, Juan Grabois, in which the retention of food in the warehouses is being investigated. In this framework, the judge requested a back up of the computer of the director of Logistics of the Ministry of Human Capital, Pablo Berardi; all the orders for food delivery since May 27; the reports received by the warehouse staff and all the records of food movements. After the operation, sources from the ministry said that the delivery is being carried out in a timely manner.

The situation is so desperate that the Church itself has been pushed into opposition. A few days ago, the president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, praised the work of the women who cook in the community kitchens in the shanty towns, warned that food aid is insufficient and asked President Milei for a national plan to ensure the arrival of food to all Argentines.  

"The situation has gotten much worse with Milei's arrival," says Celeste (42), coordinator of the soup kitchen La Sede del Puente, located in the Altos de San Lorenzo neighborhood, on the outskirts of La Plata. "Now many people come who were left without a social plan, before we gave 250 or 300 portions and now we are giving 500." In the case of the soup kitchens in La Plata, the situation is different from the rest of the country because that city belongs to the Province of Buenos Aires, a Kirchnerist bastion that, although it continues with public policies of assistance to the most vulnerable sectors, has been strongly affected by the cuts applied to the provinces by the national government, which affects all areas.

Community dining rooms

The soup kitchen works with the help of neighbours who cook and share tasks to ensure delivery twice a week. “It is the only soup kitchen in the area and that is why it is so full,” says Celeste. “People in the neighbourhood live off odd jobs (informal jobs) and if it rains they cannot go out to work and that day they have no money left. We also know of older people who have no income and we take food to their homes.” By being registered, this soup kitchen receives 2 thousand kilos of food from the provincial government every two months, but it is not enough. “A month ago we had a party to raise funds and with that we buy fresh products, vegetables, gas, etc. And we also have an account for people to subscribe and make contributions, but we are just starting with that now.”

Unlike La Sede del Puente, the soup kitchen coordinated by Paula (40) is not officially registered and is located in the middle of 5 shacks in another area on the outskirts of La Plata. “I prefer it this way, I don’t get along well with bureaucratic issues and this way it is easier for me to ask for donations,” says Paula regarding the reasons that made her give up on registering. “I have had a soup kitchen for 9 years. I started with a 9-liter pot during the government of (former president Mauricio) Macri, but the situation has not stopped getting worse and with Milei in government the number of people has doubled,” she says. 

Both Paula and Celeste give up a space in their own homes for preparing and distributing food. “I am the one who coordinates the work of the cooks and for weeks I have had to tell the girls to increase their work because more and more people write to me asking to come,” says Celeste. “We start distributing at 18.30:17 p.m. but by XNUMX p.m. there is already a queue. The boys usually eat at school at lunchtime.”

The report

Last June, the Social Council of the National University of La Plata (UNLP) presented the report "Situation of soup kitchens, snack bars and popular pots in the La Plata region", for the year 2024. It reports on the exponential increase in the opening of food distribution sites (SDA) in different neighborhoods over the last few years.

Luján González (64) has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and has known the people at the La Sede del Puente soup kitchen for as many years. “At first I came here for a sewing workshop, and then, during the pandemic, I started coming to the soup kitchen,” she says. Luján is one of those who arrives early to queue, but first she approaches the cooks to greet them and describes her situation:

“I have four children and I take food for myself and for those who don’t have a job, because some of them work as bricklayers and there are days when they have some money,” she says. “What we take we put in the fridge of those who have money, and we distribute it throughout the day. On weekends we all get together, we buy a little bit each and with that we cook something. I am a widow and I have always gone to soup kitchens, that is how I raised my four children. I also collected social benefits when I could.”

One of the first data that appears in the aforementioned report is that only 62% of the SDAs that were registered in the 2022 report could be surveyed since the remaining 38% stopped operating due to lack of supplies or personnel, due to the reductions in social plans such as Potenciar Trabajo or the Nexos program. Another fact is that the vast majority are located in popular neighborhoods of Greater La Plata and do not have regular access to two or more basic services.

"We are in a very bad situation with the receipt of food to attend to the soup kitchens. We not only give food, but we also assist people who suffer gender violence, we support children with drug problems, etc. Therefore, if there are no soup kitchens and snack bars, crime, drug trafficking, gender violence grow because there is no work, child abuse, everything grows," said Lorena, a member of the Movement of Excluded Workers, at the presentation of the report.

The most worrying fact is that a large part of the soup kitchens, canteens and popular pots (more than 70%) consider the supply of meat, raw vegetables and fruit, milk and "dry" foods such as flour, sugar and rice to be insufficient. The lowest levels of insufficiency are legumes, corn semolina and yerba mate.

"The deficiency of these nutrients seriously endangers the health and development of the population, especially children and pregnant people. At the same time, the low fiber content of the preparations made in the SDA is highlighted,” warns the UNLP Social Council. It adds: “The provincial and municipal policies for food assistance to the SDA are not enough to compensate for the withdrawal in participation that, until December 2023, was carried out by the National State, given the effects on its budgets of the structural adjustment policies implemented.”

At the national level, the situation is not very different. UNICEF's Eighth Survey of Households with Girls, Boys and Adolescents, released a few weeks ago, shows that around 10 million girls and boys in Argentina eat less meat, vegetables, fruits and dairy products than in 2023, that more than a million skip a meal a day and that almost half of households with girls and boys cannot cover basic expenses. The report notes that approximately one million children go to bed without dinner, and that this number rises to one and a half million if those who skip meals during the day are included. Furthermore, in these same households, 4 and a half million adults also skip meals, generally to ensure that their children can eat.

I vote for Milei

Although Luján and Silvia do not have the income necessary to guarantee a daily meal, neither for themselves nor for their families, neither of them blames the current government for this situation, as do Celeste and Paula, the coordinators of the soup kitchens. Luján and Silvia do not see a further deterioration of their situation with the current government, although Silvia admits that she lost her job and that this is the first time she has taken a meal from the soup kitchen. “The situation has been deteriorating for many years, it has nothing to do with the change of government, but lately I don’t have enough money. Life as it was before with a formal job, prepaid health insurance and all that, disappeared more than 30 years ago and all this with the cooperatives and emergency plans began. I have been in the neighborhood for three decades so I know families where the grandparents were there first, and then the children and grandchildren, and everything is still just as bad.” 

A strong line of argument in the discussions and debates in Argentina today, which attempts to explain Milei's victory, maintains, precisely, that the situation in the working-class neighborhoods has been disastrous for many years and that an outsider, who was the only one who proposed a radical change, was the only alternative for change that was heard by those who did not want more of the same, that is, more hunger and misery.

“I don’t know anyone in the neighborhood who voted for Milei,” says Paula. Celeste, for her part, admits that she knows people who voted for her: “Some are trying to beat their heads against the wall, and others, even though their situation is terrible, continue to say that they have to give it time. I think that many of these people don’t understand how things work, because I often talk to young people who are now in a public school and receive the Progresar (plan), or with parents who receive other plans, and they tell me that they didn’t know that this could end with this government. It’s like they’ve been brainwashed.” 

Cecilia Valdez She is an Argentine journalist.