Mexico’s position on corn imports raises concerns about free trade, food security

 
A solid, stable trading partnership between Mexico, Canada and the U.S. is important to farmers and has become the lifeblood of rural economies.  

That’s why those of us in the U.S. agricultural community have grown concerned with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s promise to enact a decree that would phase out imports of over 90 percent of American corn by January 2024. He did so over unfounded concerns about genetically modified products and the use of essential herbicides by American farmers.  

If the decree is enacted, the impact will be felt by farmers in the U.S. and by the people of Mexico. We’re now looking to the Biden administration to intervene to ensure that corn exports to Mexico don’t come to a sudden stop. 

Any move to block corn imports would seem to be politically counter-intuitive for the Mexican president. 

In fact, a recently released study raises concerns that such a move could lead to increased food insecurity in Mexico – especially among the working class – where corn is a major staple. The study shows that if Mexico moves forward with the proposed ban, corn prices would increase 19 percent, tortilla prices would spike 16 percent on average and the nation’s GDP would fall by $19 billion over ten years.  

As the old saying goes, “Every society is three missed meals from chaos.” The Tortilla Riots of 2007 offer us a cautionary tale on this matter. 

López Obrador’s promise is also a cause of great concern among U.S. corn growers who financially rely on exports to Mexico. Ending use of important tools and technologies used by these farmers is not only a non-starter, but also a decision that would have to be made years in advance.  

The casual observer may not think much about it, but the food we consume today, like the tortilla chips and refried beans my family eats while we watch the Vikings play, may have been grown in previous years. That is, the corn we’re busy harvesting this very minute, goes into grain channels into 2023 and 2024. Corn can be stored in grain silos to give growers the option to sell now or later, depending on market demand. 

Thousands of growers are busy right now booking their bags of seed for spring 2023 planting, meaning that what we purchase this fall will be in grain channels as late as 2025. Much of that seed corn is and will continue to be biotech corn that empowers us to conserve the soil and reduce insecticides. 

Given these concerns, we are calling on U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to step in and rectify the situation by immediately launching a formal, bilateral consultation under USMCA. A USMCA consultation would allow for extensive debate and mediation and would head off a calamitous outcome.  

We need USTR to act soon and the problem to be resolved quickly, because while some might think the clock is ticking, in reality, we’re already out of time. 

Haag, a Minnesota farmer, is president of the National Corn Growers Association.