The global sweetener market and stevia’s situation in México

For centuries, honey bee and cane and beet sugar were practically the only sweeteners available for human consumption. While sugar cane was brought and expanded in America during the Colony, beet was used as sweetener in European lands since the 18^th Century. However, the predominance of these two sweeteners, during the last 35 years has generated a broad variety of products with this same purpose (^{García Almeida et al., 2013}), which as a whole occupy 20 % of the global market and are equivalent to 34 million tons of sugar⁴. The unceasing search for new compounds⁵ in this line has been directed at obtaining an increasingly larger sweetening power and a lower energetic contribution, in response to changes in the preferences of specific consumer sectors.

Meanwhile, the global sugar production has experienced slight changes that point to a constant increase in its production which by the 2008/2009 cycle was 143.8 million tons, increasing in the next cycles until reaching 177.9 in 2012/2013. Since then a gradual decrease has been seen in the data for the 2015/2016 cycle when 164.9 million tons were produced (USDA-FAS-PSD, 2016)⁶. Other sources, such as the International Sugar Organization (ISO, 2015)⁷, estimate that the global consumption of sugar increased slightly from 168.4 million tons in 2013/2014 to 171.5 million tons for the 2014/2015 cycle (1.8%), while its production increased only from 171 to 172.1 million tons from 2013/2014 to 2014/2015 (0.6%). This information shows that a sort of state of equilibrium between offer and demand was reached without this implying that the excess from prior cycles were actually consumed. However, if the sugar production from beet is included, the integral sugar production decreased 1.8% between the cycles of 2012/2013 and 2014/2015.

Within this context, the main sugar competitor at the global level is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), sweetener developed during the decade of 1970 in the USA and currently produced mostly in that country. The low production prices, and with them the penetration it has had in several countries of the world, make it strongly competitive compared to cane or beet sugar (Secretaria de Economía, 2012). In their turn, non-caloric sweeteners have shown a considerable increase in international markets. According to reports from companies specialized in market analysis, the global market of these substances, not only as prime materials, but rather including the set of byproducts, will be equivalent to 1.9 trillion dollars in 2020 (Global Industry Analysts, INC)⁸. The main obstacle for the expansion of this type of products is criticism to non-caloric synthetic sweeteners (such as aspartame, sucralose, saccharine), with more or less scientific bases, depending on the case, in relation to the possible harmful secondary effects that they may have on the health of consumers (toxicity, carcinogenesis, among others) (^{García Almeida et al., 2013}).

Within this scenario, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) presents specific characteristics: it is a native plant of Paraguay from whose leaves two highly sweetening substances are extracted (stevioside and rebaudioside), and traditionally used for different purposes. During the decade of 1970 it appeared in the Japanese market and after scientific proof of the harmlessness of these extracts was gathered, they were approved to be introduced in the US market a decade later (^{García Almeida et al., 2013}). At the beginning of this century it was widely distributed by large transnational companies⁹. It has a high sweetening power (300 higher than cane sugar), can be conserved without modifications to its flavor and without gaining toxicity, even at high temperatures; also, its natural character and its various healing properties¹⁰ give it important advantages to compete favorably in differentiated markets. These qualities explain the estimations of the International Zenith Agency, with regards to the increase of 14% in stevia sales, just between 2013 and 2014 at the global level, reaching 4670 t with a value of 336 million dollars, and it is expected for this sum to continue increasing up to obtaining 578 million dollars in 2017 for a total of 7150 t (Food Business News, 2014)¹¹. Its consumption has expanded to more than 60 countries, particularly in Latin America; according to data from Mintel consulting, the number of products sweetened with stevia grows at a rate of 53% annually¹².

In the case of México and its sweetener market, the sugar cane production has been growing since colonial times, not only because of its dietary importance but rather because of the economic, social and cultural implications that it has had throughout the country’s history. Currently, the difficulties that the sugar cane sector is undergoing obey to technological deficiencies, both in the cultivation and in the industrial processing, in addition to bad administrative and economic management. On the other hand, the decrease that sugar consumption has experienced responds to the competition that the incursion into the market of new sweeteners represents, particularly HFCS (^{Secretaria de Economía, 2012, 4}). The introduction and later production of this sweetener at the national level was fostered by NAFTA, under conditions of great tension due to the discretional handling of the agreements. An increase of 2000 % in HFCS imports from the USA is reported between 2002 and 2014 (from 35 752 tcbs in 2002 to 802 272 tcbs in 2014, with peaks above a million tcbs in 2011 and 2012)¹³. Nowadays, the national consumption of HFCS represents 30 % among caloric sweeteners, while sugar practically covers the remaining 70 %. In addition to this, between 1970 and 2010 the average annual per capita sugar consumption in México decreased from 50 to 42 kg (^{García Chávez, 2011}). This decrease is explained by changes in the preferences of specific sectors of consumers, as well as by the promotion of public policies directed at discouraging the intake of products that include sugar in their formulation¹⁴.

As in other Latin American countries, the consumption of stevia has increased vertiginously in the last five years¹⁵ and the crop has begun to develop in several parts of the Mexican Republic during the last decade. According to the Agrifood and Fishing Information Service (Servicio de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera, ^{SIAP, 2014}), the production, although modest in 2014, was 218 t with only 58 ha sown in the states of Nayarit, Chiapas, Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Campeche (^{SIAP, 2014}). However, important useful areas for the crop are found in the states of Michoacán, Jalisco, Veracruz, Chiapas, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche (^{Sagarpa, 2013}). In 2015, the most important area was in Quintana Roo and Campeche, where the company Stevia Maya - which belongs to the Pegaso group and worked in collaboration with the National Institute of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Research (Instituto Nacional de Investigación Forestales Agropecuarias y Pecuarias, INIFAP) - began to operate since the year 2009 (Stevia Maya, 2015)¹⁶.

Stevia cultivation in the region of Los Tuxtlas¹⁷

In the state of Veracruz, cultivation began in Los Tuxtlas, a region with uneven topography determined by a mountainous range of volcanic origin, whose peak is at 1650 m (Figure 1).

Figure 1 The region of Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, México, and the localities of the stevia crop adaptation where the interviews were performed. 

Its eastern slope faces the sea, which gives rise to a regime of constant and abundant rainfall throughout the year (above 4500 mm) and temperatures that fluctuate between 21 and 27 °C. It is a warm-humid climate that allows the development of the northernmost evergreen high rainforest of the whole American continent, which houses a high biodiversity of species. Although traditional milpa sowing for auto-consumption continues up until today, in this region of ancient indigenous population recently sugar cane and tobacco crops have been sown, while livestock production expanded significantly throughout the region, until becoming the main economic activity.

In this scenario, the stevia crop appeared at the beginning of 2012 when Dr. Juan Manual Rayas Arvizu, originally from the region and president of the company Complejo de Investigación y Desarrollo Herbolario (CIDH S.A. de C.V.), installed in Paso del Toro and belonging to the Rayca consortium, began to be interested in the plant. He hired an agronomist engineer to reproduce it in greenhouses and to inquire, through the analysis of its characteristics, about the possibility to adapt it to the climate and soil conditions of the region. In the Neyama ranch, San Andrés Tuxtla, 3 km north of the municipal township, 3 ha were planted. At the beginning of 2013 the project was expanded with the hiring of another agronomist engineer and a new plantation of 3.5 ha in lands rented from the Matacapan ejido, 5 km south of San Andrés Tuxtla.

The following year, the project took an unexpected turn when the Rayca company hired Mr. Jorge Carvallo Delfín, at the time President of the Ministry of Social Development (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, SEDESOL) of the state of Veracruz. Mr. Carvallo showed great interest over the crop that was in full boom in other regions of México and whose consumption was beginning to be more visible in the national market. SEDESOL then promoted the idea of associating the stevia crop and the company to the social inclusion program Prospera. The crop, quite demanding in attention and labor, could only be farmed in reduced surfaces (^{Ramírez, 2011}), which is why it was thought to imply the Prospera beneficiaries, who would sow the plants in their backyards without large investments through a type of cooperation that could be convenient both for the Rayca Company and for the producers. For SEDESOL, to become involved and finance the project of stevia plantations would allow, according to the state delegate of Prospera in the state of Veracruz, Alejandro Baquedano Sánchez, transforming the program of only allotting transferences into a productive project¹⁸. It was a shift in the action lines of the program, which is explained in the operation rules (^{Diario Oficial, 2014})¹⁹. SEDESOL was in charge of purchasing the plants from the company and delivering them to the producers. The Rayca company was committed to cultivating the seedlings necessary and SEDESOL to selling them, providing the producers with technical assistance and certain organic products needed for the crop²⁰, and purchasing the dry leaves at the end of the process. The Prospera title holders had the task of receiving the seedlings, carrying out the whole productive process of stevia, and selling the dry leaves in bags to Rayca at a price fixed by the company of $350 per kg, from which they would be able to increase their income in a substantial way. It seemed then that each one of the parts associated to the project would obtain certain benefits.

In April 2014, SEDESOL organized a first meeting with the vocals of the Pospera program in Salto de Eyipantla, community from the municipality of San Andrés Tuxtla, to inform them of the possibility of cultivating this new plant, and of the characteristics and conditions of the crop. The Rayca company suggested starting with a pilot project to evaluate both the feasibility of implanting the crop in the region and the problems that producers would face. In May 2014, SEDESOL delivered the seedlings to five producers who met the conditions for the project²¹ - having a plot of their own or to rent where to plant, with access to irrigation water and without trees that would affect the crop with their shade - and the first plantations were sown. The agronomists from the company gave assistance at the time of planting and visited the plantations regularly to oversee the evolution of pests and explain to the producers how to eliminate them. One of the main problems is that climate conditions in Los Tuxtlas favor the proliferation of fungi and other pests that affect the plant. The first cut was done in August 2014 and, although the Rayca company and SEDESOL had said that the kilogram would be paid at $350.00, each of the producers received $10 000, without taking into account the weight, which ranged between 10 and 20 kg per delivery²².

After this first experience, SEDESOL organized other information meetings in communities neighboring Salto de Eyipantla to convince even more Prospera title holders about planting stevia. The price offered to the five producers from the pilot project was the best incentive in communities where work is scarce. New producers from the communities of Bezuapan, Comoapan, Salto de Eyipantla, Santa Rosa Abata, Huidero, Tilapan, Chuniapan de Arriba and Soyata were incorporated into the project in August and September 2014. It was approximately 100 plantations, each with 1000 seedlings in average and 100 m² of surface, which appeared near the households: in the backyards or between the street and the house, whenever there was no space behind. The plants were also planted in ejido plots located on the periphery of the towns. The producers who did not have backyards sought to rent or ask for a piece of land as a loan from neighbors or relatives, always respecting the basic conditions: access to water and without shade. The Rayca company continued with its task of training, having as main interlocutors the vocals from Prospera, who later passed on the information to the title holders involved.

In November 2014, SEDESOL at the federal level was integrated to the project of the Veracruz stevia plantations and suddenly a more important dimension was given to it. The promotion of the crop in the state of Veracruz, which took place at the same time that the new operation rules from Prospera were published in the official government journal, ^{Diario Oficial (2014)}, had the objective of allowing the beneficiaries to foster their productive capacities and obtain economic income from its production. It represented a model project for SEDESOL at the federal level, which began to finance new plantations in the same localities and in others in the region. It announced as objective the implantation in the short term of 4000 plantations²³, thanks to a budget of 54 million pesos²⁴, destined to the purchase of plants and to the financing of technical consulting.

The Rayca company paid the deliveries of dry leaves, corresponding to the cuts carried out in several localities during the months of November and December 2014, at $1000 per kilogram, which nearly tripled again the price announced previously, although SEDESOL explained that it was a way to compensate the generalized low production of this crop due to problems in the consultancy²⁵; many of the Prospera title holders suspected that this would continue to be the price. In a few months, hundreds of Prospera title holders signed up on the SEDESOL lists at the federal level.

Changes in the sustenance strategies of the households caused by the crop

Regarding access to capitals, it is paradoxical that in the region of Los Tuxtlas a large number of development projects have been promoted by government institutions, international agencies, scholars, and NGOs (^{Paré, 1996}; ^{Paré and Robles, 2005}; ^{Casados, 2008}; ^{Cruz and Valencia, 2009}; ^{Piñar et al., 2012}). However, these initiatives have not been able to counteract the difficulties that the insufficiency of work opportunities and the withdrawal of state support to the countryside represent, as well as the demographic growth and fragmentation of lands in the zone. Although the diversification of household income is not recent, nor the participation of one or more of its members in the formal markets of non-agricultural/livestock work, the widespread growth of these processes draws attention (^{Léonard, 2003}). During recent decades the migratory flows have been intensified outside the region and toward increasingly farther places beyond the national borders (^{Léonard, 2003}).

The inefficacy of the efforts to drive development is reflected in the precarious living conditions that prevail in the communities of study. The Population and Housing Census (^{INEGI, 2010}) shows that the percentage of illiterate people in the localities (between 12 and 21%) is in all cases above the national (5.8%), with the percentage of women always being higher than that of men. High percentages of the population (26 to 65%) are found who in these localities do not have access to health services. The vulnerability of a large number of households is also appreciated in the number of women heads of household equivalent to the range from 17 to 26% of the domestic groups (^{INEGI, 2010}).

On the other hand, the transformation of the productive activities is appreciated in the distribution of the Economically Active Population per sector reported for the region: 35% in the primary, 45% in services, and 17% in the manufacturing. Official data report high percentages of occupied population in these localities (76 to 85%, being always significantly lower in the case of women), but they do not manage to capture precisely the temporal character and the significant seasonal fluctuations in many of the work offers in the zone.

In the case of access to public services, ^{INEGI (2010)} reports that low percentages (1 to 9%) of the households in these localities lack electricity. The proportion of households that do not have piped water fluctuates between 13 and 29% in the different localities. In this same sense, the shortages in health services, education and basic services are reflected in the high degree of marginalization that is found in all the localities, according to the evaluations performed by ^{CONAPO (2010)}.

An economy based on the temporary work and state backing

The field work allows perfecting and complementing statistical information in terms of the livelihood strategies and incomes. According to the testimonies, in these localities most of the masculine population is employed occasionally as day laborers, in the tobacco and maize crops, for a wage of $1500 to $2000 pesos monthly. Other men work in the tobacco storehouses and in construction, with similar economic conditions. In some cases, the heads of households have left to work outside the locality, to another part of the country or to the USA and they send money. These incomes are sometimes complemented with the women’s activities (selling catalog products or snacks in the town, grocery stores, breeding pigs and hens), and with the backing from Procampo for the ejido members.

Within this context, the scholarships and supports from Prospera constitute an important part of the incomes. According to the norms from SEDESOL (^{Diario Oficial, 2014}), the scholarships vary between $175.00 and $1120.00 monthly per student, according to the sex and degree of study, which add up to a fixed amount of $335.00 monthly of dietary support and $140.00 monthly from complementary dietary support for each Prospera title holder. In the case of PC, for example, 32-year-old Prospera vocal from the community of Bezuapan, the labor situation varies according to the seasons. AR, her husband, works as a day laborer and in seasonal employment, with payment of $180.00 daily in average²⁶, although there have been periods of up to two weeks without work. PC makes handcrafts (cushions, sown and adorned bags), of which the sales help, particularly during the periods when her husband doesn’t work. Their 16-year-old daughter studies the Telebachillerato (distant learning high school) and their son of 13 has just dropped out of secondary school. Therefore, every two months, PC receives $950.00 for dietary support and $3060.00 for her daughter’s scholarship; that is, a total of $2005.00 monthly, the sole stable income, more or less equivalent to what AR and PC earn monthly from their work and sales. In the case of NC, 28-year-old from the community of Comoapan, the scholarship of $175.00 of the daughter in primary school and the dietary support add up to a total of $650.00 monthly, so the family’s situation is more precarious. M, NC’s 30-year-old husband, works as a laborer two or three days a week, depending on the demand, and she helps an aunt in her groceries store three afternoons per week. The family income can reach $2000.00 monthly, at most. In these two cases, representative of the communities’ families, the incomes allow covering basic expenses (daily food, electricity, water, gas, transport, annuities and school supplies), but any unforeseen event, for example, in health²⁷, can hardly be solved without taking on debts.

The situation of ejidatarios seems not to differ much. EC, ejidatario from El Periconal and resident of the community of Comoapan, has 3.5 ha, which he sows mainly with maize for the sale and consumption by his family (seven people). They obtain between 10 and 15 t from the two cultivation cycles (tapachole and rainfed): they keep around 400 kg for the consumption of the household and sell the remainder at $2.50 per kg to intermediaries that come from Salto de Eyipantla and San Andrés Tuxtla. Also, they grow bean in combination with maize and peanut in small surfaces. The annual incomes from the field add up to approximately $35 000, from which the expenses in inputs and labor should be subtracted. The backing from Prospera and Procampo represents a lower annual income, of approximately $25 000, but they are more stable and distributed throughout the year, in contrast with the field incomes that can be quite variable and are concentrated in two or three annual seasons. The comparison of these ejidatario households with the prior ones indicates that access to land does not fundamentally change the situation, because they are small areas with low profitability crops.

Social, economic and territorial changes

This scenario of marginalization and constant insecurity in the access to income allows evaluating the impact that the appearance of stevia had in the economies of the households of Los Tuxtlas which adopted the crop. In August 2014, when the first deliveries were paid at $10 000, this amount could be equivalent to what was earned in the household during a period of three or four months. The money served for the purchase of basic baskets, for medical expenses, and even, in some cases, for the reimbursement of debts taken out previously. The producers with greater margin to maneuver reinvested a part of the earnings in the crop (chemical pesticides, fences to protect the plantation), and in other productive areas; for example, the purchase of merchandise to resell in their small businesses.

Apart from the impact that it had on the family economy, stevia also meant changes in the organization of life rhythms, as the producers explain. Because of its characteristics, the crop implies an important investment of daily time: the plant must be watered once or twice a day, pruned, the flower buttons removed, and pesticides and fertilizers applied to the plant every eight or fifteen days. Every three months the work is more intensive because the cutting and drying processes take place at the same time. The plants are braided into bows and laid out in the sun or a covered place. Later they are defoliated and the loose leaves are stretched out on canvases for their last phase of drying. Finally the dry leaves are packed in 8 kg plastic bags.

In many cases other members of the household are involved in the tasks. Men support in the heavier tasks when they do not go out to work or in the afternoons: they prepare the boards for sowing, irrigate with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and cut, among other things. The children and elderly are devoted to defoliating, drying and braiding. The women manage to combine the cultivation with household activities and the complementary ones, such as catalog sales or handcraft manufacture, which are also carried out at home. The possibility of combining the new crop with other activities is facilitated through the division of labor between members of the households, the nearness of the plantations to the households, and being able to devote time to them during free time, many times a day.

At the level of landscape and territory, the impact of the crop is still moderate: the total surface reached approximately 40 ha in the San Andrés Tuxtla region in September 2015²⁸. However, the surface increased quite rapidly between January - when there was less than 10 ha - and September 2015. There were some cases of expansion in ejido plots, when access to water allowed it. PC began to cultivate in August 2014, with one thousand plants delivered by the Prospera program, which she planted in a part of her plot adjoining the town. She took advantage of her knowledge of the country, especially of the tobacco crop, and enlarged her plantation progressively with plants that other inhabitants of the town gifted her for lack of space and later with others, which she reproduced herself by cuttings. In March 2015, her plantation included more than 6000 plants. By September she had increased even more the surface of the plantation within the plot and a backyard garden, with a total of approximately 10 000 plants. However, more than these isolated cases of expansion in plots, the impact on the landscape was due to the multiplication of the plantations in barren lands, backyards and around the houses in dozens of localities. This “ant colonization” of the green stevia leaves marked the rural landscape of the region subtly, but persistently.

Contradictions and deficiencies of the project, their causes and consequences; a productive project without real interest for production

During the months that followed the involvement of Prospera at the federal level in the project, it was decided to replace the agronomist engineers from Rayca who worked with the producers since the beginning of the project, with environmental engineers trained by them, but without agronomic information. Their support was insufficient, since their number didn’t increase at the same rhythm than that of the plantations. Prospera began to share a small manual with explanations about the different phases of the crop, the tasks to be performed, and the ways of eradicating the most common pests (coleopterans, aphids, diseases produced by fungi) through the application of home-made blends (made with vegetables and spices). In an essentially oral culture, the producers did not consult the manual; the information continued to circulate from vocals to title holders and among producers, sometimes from different communities. The remedies proposed were not as effective and the producers, increasingly more numerous, felt helpless in face of the degradation of their plants. Because of lack of knowledge and assistance, several producers began then to apply the chemical pesticides that were used in tobacco cultivation, without taking into account the implications for the stevia leaves²⁹. Despite the product obtained lacking quality and the Rayca company not having the need for leaves, it continued to ensure the purchase. In fact, the sales of products elaborated by Rayca - cosmetics, stevia tea bags and powdered soy milkshakes called Sochoc - did not increase significantly, despite Prospera encouraging the producers to purchase the latter product (which is sold in the Liconsa stores³⁰) to promote the crop. On the other hand, the company didn’t find the way to process the leaf to obtain a standard sweetener³¹. Therefore, the demand for leaves did not grow and the company could have even been stocked solely with the ones obtained in its own plantations. Despite this, in face of the increase of leaves harvested as consequence of the expansion of plantations, Rayca continued to purchase leaves during the first months of 2015, at a price of $350.00 per kilogram, overvalued with regards to the world price (see note 22).

During these months and up until now, there was little reliable information from SEDESOL or the company about the crop, the tasks and the sales. The producers ignored whether the buyer was SEDESOL, Rayca or another company; they ignored the destination and process of the leaf; they were confused by the advisers and their employers. In addition, there were rumors of diverse and contradictory information about the prices, the type of payment, the dates of collection, and the supposed privileges of producers from the neighboring localities and the vocals.

An electoral objective

The many contradictions of the program and the testimonies from the producers allow relating this project with the use of social programs for political-electoral purposes, which has a long tradition in México and has been described by different authors (^{Vilalta, 2007}; ^{Hevia, 2010}; ^{Bey and Combes, 2011}). The capture of projects and funds by local leaders, particularly in electoral times, has been reported as persistent in programs of conditioned transfers like Prospera, Procampo and Liconsa, even when it has been sought to establish locks, both in terms of reference and in the manners of operation, with the aim of preventing their use with electoral purposes. However, political corporativism and cronyism have not been stopped, which are more common practices in the population of program beneficiaries than in non-beneficiaries (^{Vilalta, 2007}). If in recent years less cases of coaction have been proven (threats, conditioning backing, violence), the clientele and semi-clientele practices have been multiplied, adopting varied and complex forms (^{Hevia, 2010}). On several occasions, the Prospera program has been accused of doing proselytism, especially through its program “National Crusade against Hunger”³².

In the case of stevia, the field work allowed establishing a relationship between the cultivation project and the electoral process of June 7^th, 2015. That day 500 federal representatives were elected (as well as governors, municipal presidents and local representatives in several states). In the District of San Andrés Tuxtla of the state of Veracruz, one of the candidates was Jorge Carvallo Delfín, who shortly before had been SEDESOL state delegate.

If we take up again one by one the contradictions of the program (fast expansion of a crop without there being a corresponding demand; purchase of tons of low quality leaves without there being a market, and overvalued price; substitution of qualified advisers for other less apt ones; lack of information and secrecy), these provide indications about the real objective: to contribute economic benefits to the Prospera title holders to convince them that the government in office was supporting them and thus influencing their vote. What mattered was multiplying the number of beneficiaries of the plantations and paying the first deliveries at a good price to arouse the interest and enthusiasm of the producers. This was allowed by the economic support of the Rayca businessman, who was allied to the project motivated by political aspirations. The overvalued price of the stevia leaf was fixed by the company randomly, without relation to the global market or to the demand. The quality of the leaves and the use of chemical products were not issues to be worried about, since because it was not a true productive project, neither the production nor the quality of the product mattered.

The lack of knowledge, the confusion and the myths about the process were favored by SEDESOL-Prospera to increase the ignorance and vulnerability of the producers and to impose their conditions without them being questioned or the women being able to organize themselves, applying a “mechanism of social control on the voters” (^{Vilalta, 2007, 36}). In the same way, the role given to the vocals, the most informed and often economically favored by the project, allowed having them “won over to the cause”. These intermediaries - who have an essential role in the proper functioning of the Prospera program, as shown by ^{Felipe Hevia (2010)} - were the ones who calmed the waters, defused conflicts and complaints, and defended the project, despite its inconsistencies, delays and defaults. The new field advisers were other intermediaries, who were hired, according to the testimonies collected, to evidence the benefits and qualities that stevia represented for the producers and to relate them to the name of the candidate to the deputation or the PRI candidate³³. The producers interviewed who charged in December 2014 the amount of $1000 per kilogram of dry leaf mentioned that these advisers explained that the company gave $350.00 per kilogram and that “the President of the Republic” provided $750.00 complementary. It was a very clear way of signaling who was supporting them and of indicating “how to vote right” in the next elections, in order for the support to continue. The visit to Salto de Eyipantla of the director of the SEDESOL at the federal level, Rosario Robles Berlanga, accompanied by the governor of the state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte Ochoa, on January 14^th 2015, followed by that of the President of the Republic one month later (February 16^th), constitute other strong supports given to the stevia crop and through this, to the candidate of the PRI from the district of San Andrés Tuxtla.

On June 7^th, Jorge Carvallo Delfín won the federal deputation with 50.92% of the votes³⁴, and although, as ^{Combes (2011)} mentions, the goods and favors did not guarantee the support and loyalty of the “clients” and it cannot be proven formally and statistically that this victory was due to the votes from the Prospera beneficiaries, the attempt to capture the trust of the producers, direct the vote and thus create a clientele dynamic is proven³⁵.

In Los Tuxtlas, this “capture” by political operators or by traditional overlords is based on the replacement and refunctionalization of leadership that has taken place in the region, associated to what ^{Léonard (2003)} names as the territorialization of social networks at the local level. Various development projects and initiatives promoted in the zone by academic institutions, NGOs, churches and international agencies have faced these same difficulties for several decades (^{Paré, 1996}; ^{Casados, 2008}; ^{Paré and Robles, 2005}; ^{Cruz Ramírez and Tehuitzil Valencia, 2009}; ^{Piñar Álvarez et al., 2012}).

The post-electoral situation

In the two months prior to the elections, representatives from SEDESOL-Prospera had to respect the electoral ban and did not go to the region: advice was given over the telephone and the producers knew that during those months there was not going to be leaf collection. The question was whether the purchases would be renewed after the elections and about the permanence of the crop.

At the end of the month of June, 2015, the representatives of Prospera finally returned, but not to all the localities, or to purchase the totality of the production. In Matacapan the producers had cut twice after the sowing in February, but until September no one had visited to collect the bags; after six months of tasks, small investments and effort, they had not charged even one peso. In the locality of Bezuapan, the leaf was collected and paid to 25 producers and, since two harvests had added up due to the electoral ban, the earnings were important. For example, PC obtained 73 kilos from the two harvests and earned $17 500.00, but no leaf was bought from 15 producers from the same locality, without explanation, which caused incomprehension and desperation.

Another post-electoral novelty was that differentiated prices were applied to the product, from $150.00 to $350.00 per kg of leaf, adduced to quality control (the bags with black or brown colored leafs were paid less than the bags with green leaves). This could be a random way of reducing the costs for Prospera. The uncertainty of the sales and the varied and lower price than was expected³⁶, in addition to the discrepancy between the hours and efforts that the producers devoted to the plantation and the earnings obtained, caused generalized despondency. Some pulled out the plants; others abandoned their plantations or gave them only minimal care, with which the plantation grew without control and became weedy.

The crop remained because SEDESOL continued working with stevia as a result of not showing versatility or making evident the pre-electoral manipulation in terms of a project that had been supported by the President of the Republic in person. It was important to continue with the new rules of operation and the project of productive inclusion. However, the absence of market for the leaf was stronger than ever because, due to political disagreements previous to the elections, the Rayca businessman disassociated himself from the project and ceased to purchase the leaf. If in the months after the elections SEDESOL-Prospera did not collect the stevia systematically, it was because it was overwhelmed by the amount of leaves obtained. There was no possibility of selling them to large groups, such as FEMSA or Bimbo, despite the growing demand, because the leaf would not pass the quality filters. In September 2015 there was talk of the participation of another company, with greater investment capacity than Rayca, which could purchase the leaf, process it and manufacture new byproducts, such as stevia honey. The situation continued to be of uncertainty from the lack of a solid productive scheme.