February 26, 2007

 

Mexico announces plans to increase corn production

 

 

The Mexican government on Friday (Feb 23) announced detailed plans for increasing total national corn production by 43 percent to 30 million tonnes to be self-sufficient within the next six years.

 

The principal target of the new policies is to increase not only producing areas but also productivity in order to strengthen the supply chain of white corn needed for making the key staple tortillas--a corn pancake.

 

"We have to raise production from the 21 million tonnes now to 30 million tonnes," said President Felipe Calderon, announcing a wide range of reforms aimed at helping Mexican agricultural producers through the opening in January 2008 of the market under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

 

"With technology, with adequate irrigation, with adequate seeds and fertilisers, and with the financing that must be in place for the farm sector, we have to get up to 10 tonnes per hectare in many areas and to 5 tonnes as national average," Calderon said.

 

The average Mexican yield for corn currently reaches 2.8 tonnes a hectare, but tiny indigenous subsistence farmers in Mexico's impoverished southern state of Chiapas produce as little as 300 kilogrammes a hectare, while industrial producers in northern Sinaloa state can reach up to 10 tonnes.

 

Calderon said the low productivity was one of the biggest challenges for Mexico's 1.9 million corn producers, of which 60 percent are tiny subsistence farmers in areas largely dominated by indigenous communities where new technology has been difficult to introduce in the past.

 

In a 50-point plan for policy reforms concentrating on the key corn, edible bean, milk and sugar sectors, which combined employ about 3 million families and support the livelihood of an estimated 15 million Mexicans, special priority was given to corn farmers.

 

The action plan outlines key targets for how Mexico can increase production of yellow corn used as feed grains by the rapidly growing livestock industry, which today rely almost exclusively on imports for its supply.

 

The plan, a copy of which was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires, said southern and south-central states had vast potential to increase both yields as well as new areas for cultivation.

 

Out of a special fund in the federal budget for agriculture in 2007 worth about US$1.64 billion, the corn sector took the lion's share with about US$1.1 billion set aside for investment and other development programmes needed by corn producers to achieve the targets in the plan.

 

Mexican corn production accounts for 5.3 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product in agriculture. White corn makes up about 93 percent of total national output.