Leche para el Bienestar and INAFED Formalise Nationwide Milk Agreement
Leche para el Bienestar, a federal programme attached to Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development, and INAFED, which belongs to the Secretariat of the Interior, have concluded an intergovernmental co-ordination agreement. The pact covers the expansion of the social supply of fortified liquid milk across all 2,477 municipalities and territorial districts in Mexico.
Under the arrangement, INAFED will provide municipal administrations with technical advice and support. Its work will include identifying priority areas, preparing suitable facilities and helping with the logistics needed to open new community milk outlets. The agreement is also intended to reduce administrative obstacles in local programme management.
Leche para el Bienestar sells a litre at a subsidised price of 7.50 pesos under its general rate. In municipalities classified as having very high levels of marginalisation, the preferential price is 4.50 pesos. The programme’s stated coverage includes children aged from six months to 12 years, pregnant or breastfeeding women, older people, and individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses.
The milk is fortified with iron, zinc, folic acid, and vitamins A, C, D and B-group vitamins. The formulation is directed at nutritional needs including chronic malnutrition and anaemia among young children, according to the programme’s description. The scheme also provides access to animal protein for households in lower-income areas.
The programme is supplied exclusively with milk from Mexican cows. The planned territorial expansion is linked to higher purchasing requirements for the state-owned processor’s plants and to purchases from small and medium-sized dairy farmers through the government’s Guarantee Prices mechanism. That mechanism provides a commercial outlet and set prices for primary producers in the country’s dairy regions.
The two institutions have described the agreement as part of a plan to reach 10m beneficiaries by 2030 while extending coverage throughout Mexico. The arrangement places municipal governments at the centre of the local operation of the milk-supply programme and combines the federal social-supply initiative with municipal co-ordination.
