Mexico’s Agriculture Minister announced Tuesday that his agency has a plan to reduce the consumer price of corn tortillas by 10%.
“We are going to invite [producers] to come to a national agreement on corn and tortillas, with a very ambitious goal of reducing the cost of tortillas by 10% in real terms throughout the duration of this government’s term in office,” Julio Berdegué, head of the ministry known as SADER, told reporters at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily presidential press conference.
The price of tortillas rose by 61.7% during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term (2018–2024), making today’s average price of corn tortillas per kilogram 23.17 pesos (US $1.16).
Berdegué’s stated commitment to reduce the price of one of Mexico’s most popular staple foods — dubbed by officials as the National Plan for Corn and Tortillas — is just one part of a new comprehensive federal plan announced at Tuesday’s press conference to advance Mexico’s self-sufficiency in food crops, support Mexican farmers, guarantee food security for citizens and promote nutritious diets.
Another part of the plan announced Tuesday, the Production for Well-Being program, has as a core tenet the support of 2.02 million small and medium-scale farmers, chiefly in the production of staple crops such as corn, beans, sugar cane, coffee, cocoa and honey.
Another initiative in the plan is the Harvesting Sovereignty program, an initiative to boost the production of corn, beans, rice, milk, sorghum, onions, tomatoes and chiles in Mexico.
Mexicans consume around 1 million metric tons of beans a year, 300,000 of which are imported. Sheinbaum’s government would like to change that by helping farmers cultivate almost 1.9 million acres of land with certified high-quality legume seeds. It also aims to increase rice production in Mexico by 250,000 metric tons a year by supporting the development of 148,263 acres of land.
Sader has identified 1,200 low-income municipalities where small and medium-sized commercial farming is prevalent to participate in the project. To support these priority areas, the ministry will offer a combination of credit facilities, commercial assistance and social programs as incentives.
Berdegué emphasized that while the government’s plan aims to encourage more staple crop production, it also is committed to doing so with a lower environmental impact, acknowledging that 75% of the country’s water is currently used for agriculture.
With reports from El Economista
I would like to see Sheinbaum’s plan for reducing water usage by the agriculture sector. She needs to implement it before dedicating more land to growing crops.
And I wish some of the new crop addition plans were for fresh fruits and vegetables. This essential component of a healthy diet is extremely lacking in most Mexican household meals
Perhaps the prior reader (no disrespect intended) did not read the article correctly, or is from California where they send the majority of their water to the Pacific ocean to protect some type of fish instead of allowing the farmers water for their crops in some of the most productive farmland in the United States. But it is common for this forum, the majority of people are liberals, from probably California and Canada; at least in Canada they don’t know any better. From the Canadians I’ve talked to they want to get out of their country because health care is a disaster, president Trudeau is a moron but that’s none of my business. I don’t live there that’s their business it’s just what I’ve been told they take care of their business I have no right to tell them how to run their country.
If the reader had read the article she would have seen the following which is a quote,
“2.02 million small and medium-scale farmers, chiefly in the production of staple crops such as corn, beans, sugar cane, coffee, cocoa and honey”.
this seems to be crops that the Mexican people can eat, as far as I understand beans and legumes are healthy, and if you have lived here for any length of time you know that the Mexican population uses tortillas for every meal.
Mexico does need to work on their water retention system such as maybe building some lakes in the mountains or make room for underground water storage. During rainy season there’s a lot of water that comes down from the mountains, and rivers that runs into the ocean the water is wasted they should devise a way to harvest the water but use it for crops, drinking water for the general population, people have to eat and take care of their family.
I believe the best way to handle the water shortage problem is to quit giving permits for condos to build on any small area to build a condo, that leads to the overpopulation even in non tourist communities.
These are only my observations, for a country that I moved to because it has the friendliest people in the world.
And yes to answer the questions I have been all around the world I was going to live in Thailand but I chose Mexico instead.
Interesting how the headline says one thing, but the article says another.
You can read the headline.
The article states: “We are going to invite [producers] to come to a national agreement on corn and tortillas, with a very ambitious goal of reducing the cost of tortillas by 10% in real terms throughout the duration of this government’s term in office,”
So, this is really just another bludgeoning of farmers and tortilla makers by the government to lower their prices. Nice.