Of country matters

Mexico spends about 41.5 billion US dollars on food imports. Despite its image and history as a largely agrarian country only about 4% of Mexican GPD comes from its own agricultural production, employing only 14% of the workforce and that includes workers in the agricultural export (mostly "luxury" products... winter fruits and vegetables, berries, marijuana and opium poppies).

There are some benefits to the present trade. Mexico's other exports ... 386 billion US dollars a year just to the United States more than covers the food bill, although it also means that much of the food we buy, especially processed foods, are subject to standards (or lack thereof) out of the country's own controls.

While occasional "food fights" over the suitability of certain imports and exports... going back to the quarentine on Mexican cattle to prevent a spread of brucellosis back in the 1950s, most have been more about economic protection, using public health as a concern... for several years, avocados from Michoacan could not be sold in the United States under the claim that they might carry the eggs of the Mediterrean fruit fly... a pest in southern Califronia (anda center of US avocado cultrivation) despite the fly not living in Michoacan. Similarly, for a time potatoes from idaho could not be imported into Mexico, claiming some nemotode attacking potatoes in that northern US state might attack the potatoes fown in Chihuahua.

These were rather small scale problems... either resolved through joint efforts (cattle vaccination programs in the 50s) or a political compromise (usually to the benefit of the US corporate interests, as in Michoacan avocados indirectedly to US consumers through the Califronia Avocado Growers' Association). However, none of these invoved the foodstuffs of "first necessity". Dir nexucim tgat's corn and beans.

Mexico does not want glyphosate treated corn. While one might argue the validity of scientific research strongly suggesting the health dangers of glyphosate, there's no denying that the glyphosate-resistant corn varieties are patented by US corporations, and where they are grown, have cross-pollinated other varieties to the extent that farms end up with a single variety, which would be vulerable to any potential glyphosate-resistant pest... wiping out entire crops. Were this to happen in the United States, where huge swathes of corn production are all the same variety would seriously impact Mexico, which has 64 corn varieties, adapted to different environments which would, in a pinch, survive any attck on a single variety.

For this reason... and public heath reasons... and political ones... Mexico has made food security, at least in corn, a priority (one often overlooked in the media, the new trains, oil refineries, and the always popular "drug war" being sexier news items).

from Jornada, 5 September 2023, page 12

This year some 400,000 producers have stopped using glyphosate

As part of the"Produccíon para el Bienestar" program, 400,000 growers have discontinued using glyphosate on their crops in the first half of this year, in line with the presidential decree of February 13 that gradually prohibits the use of this chemical and competely bans it by 2024.

Victor Suarez, Undersecrity of Agriculture, announced at a press confernce that in the first half of the year, direct assistance for small and midium farms benfitted 1,760,000 small and medium sized producers , and hopes to benefit 2,000,000 by the end of the year.

The firve yer old program provides direct assistance to small and medium sized farms, in conjustion with other <deptment of Agricultural programs, and the “Sebrado Vida” and “Fertilizantes para benienestar” programs of the Secretaría de Bienestar (literally, Secretariat of Well-Benin, roughly equivalent to the US Department of Health and Human Services).

Suarez pints out that these producers were overlooked in the past, being considered too small or marginal of operatins to materially affect agriculture. 84% of those in the program are small farms, the rest medium sized. All, however, are producing sufficient produce to have a market surplus.

With a complete glyphsate ban (at least on foods for direct human consumption) scheduled to take effect at the end of 2024, and a goal of national food security suggesting less reliance on imports (expecially from a single source), ithis is only the start… with more agressive action to come?