{"id":479001,"date":"2025-08-18T10:55:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/leonel-the-governments-food-policy-has-condemned-the-people-to-eat-cocote-molleja-pata-y-asadura\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:55:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:55:54","slug":"leonel-the-governments-food-policy-has-condemned-the-people-to-eat-cocote-molleja-pata-y-asadura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/dominican-news\/leonel-the-governments-food-policy-has-condemned-the-people-to-eat-cocote-molleja-pata-y-asadura\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonel: The government’s food policy has condemned the people to eat “cocote, molleja, pata y asadura”"},"content":{"rendered":"Santo Domingo. \u2013<\/strong> The former president of the Republic, Leonel<\/a> Fern\u00e1ndez, launched harsh criticisms of the current government’s agri-food policy, assuring that the failed official decisions have deteriorated the purchasing power of the population and have alarmingly increased the price of chicken, a basic protein in the Dominican diet.\n\nFern\u00e1ndez, also president of the Fuerza del Pueblo, recalled that in 2012 the pound of chicken ranged between 35 and 40 pesos, while currently, under the management of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM<\/a>), it reaches between 80 and 100 pesos. This, he specified, represents an increase of more than 140%, a direct blow to the pockets of consumers, especially those with lower incomes.\n\n\n

Read more: Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez attends the wake of Jos\u00e9 Rafael Lantigua<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\nThe former president refuted the so-called Chicken Index, recently used by the head of state to defend the purchasing power of the minimum wage, calling the argument an interpretation that “does not constitute a real measurement of the purchasing power of Dominicans.” He assured that the indicator lacks foundation, as it does not take into account the reality that families face when covering their basic basket.\n\nIn his analysis, Fern\u00e1ndez recalled that the poultry crisis began in the first months of the current government in 2020, when the pound of chicken had already risen by 11 pesos on Christmas Eve of that year. Since then, he said, the increase has remained constant, reaching historic levels that even forced the Executive to impose rationing measures in August 2021, limiting the purchase to four units per person.\n\nThe three-time president of the Republic emphasized that this scarcity prevented Dominican families from accessing legs, thighs, or breasts, leaving chicken practically absent from the national table. “It was not due to an increase in purchasing power, but because the swine fever shifted consumption towards chicken meat, further increasing its price,” he explained.\n\nFurthermore, he denounced that the agreements signed between the government, producers, and supermarkets, far from stabilizing the market, did not prevent the rise in prices nor did they manage to guarantee a sufficient supply. “The president welcomed the pact as a guarantee of food security, but reality proved the opposite,” said the political leader.\n\nFern\u00e1ndez also warned about the effects of Law 6-22, which established a zero tariff for the import of 67 food products, which in his opinion caused the bankruptcy of medium and small national producers. According to what he stated, agricultural imports practically doubled, going from 3.1 billion dollars in 2020 to almost 6 billion in 2024, with a devastating impact on local production.\n\n“The result has been disastrous: the producer sells at the farm for 32 pesos per pound, when their actual production cost is around 38 pesos, which has led them to ruin,” lamented the former president, while holding the government responsible for placing the country in a situation of food dependency, with increasingly high prices for consumers.\n\nIn this context, Fern\u00e1ndez denounced that the basic family basket of the poorest sectors has increased by 33% during the last five years, going from 21,154 pesos to 28,159, while the average minimum wage barely reaches 15,000 pesos. “That means that the income only covers 53% of the needs of vulnerable families,” he pointed out.\n\nFinally, the president of the Fuerza del Pueblo warned that the misguided agricultural policies of the PRM “have sought to condemn us to eat only the neck, gizzard, feet, and offal of the chicken.” And he finished his analysis with a popular metaphor: “Fortunately, the people have not yet been caught by the pichirr\u00ed.”","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Santo Domingo. \u2013 The former president of the Republic, Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez, launched harsh criticisms of the current government’s agri-food policy, assuring that the failed official decisions have deteriorated the purchasing power of the population and have alarmingly increased the price of chicken, a basic protein in the Dominican diet. Fern\u00e1ndez, also president of the Fuerza […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":479002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[40216],"tags":[711,1220,40990],"class_list":["post-479001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dominican-news","tag-leonel-fernandez","tag-prm","tag-strength-of-the-people"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-20BP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-08-18-at-7.30.56-AM.jpeg","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["Dominican News"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-08-18-at-7.30.56-AM.jpeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}