Corn producers warn of new road blockades if the government does not respond to their requests

Corn producers from the states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Jalisco and the Bajío area warned that they will block some of the country’s main roads again next Monday if the Government does not agree to establish a guarantee price of 7,200 pesos (391 dollars) per ton of the grain.

“If there is no favorable response from the Ministry of the Interior and Agriculture, the corn growers of those states will block (toll booths), the main roads, and we will analyze moving to the capital of the country with agricultural machinery.”warned the leader of the National Union of Agricultural Workers (UNTA), Álvaro López Ríos, in a statement.

López Ríos maintained that the previous national strike did not make the Mexican Government, headed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, “become aware” of the crisis in the countryside.

“The governments of the fourth transformation—movement of the ruling party National Regeneration Movement (Morena), from which Sheinbaum emerged—are equal to or worse than their neoliberal predecessors, since they reduced the rural budget, dismantled social programs and liquidated institutions such as Financiera Rural”he stated.

The leader criticized the federal agricultural policy and assured that, despite the official discourse on food self-sufficiency, Mexico imports a large part of its basic grains.

“Mexico produces less than 50% of the corn it consumes, 20% of the wheat and rice, 80% of the beans and just 5% of the oilseeds. The reality is that clear and dramatic,” he said.

López Ríos recalled that, since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the reform of Constitutional Article 27 during the Government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1989-1994), the UNTA warned that such measures “would be the ruin of the Mexican countryside.”

According to the leader, national food self-sufficiency fell from 72% to 42% in the last 37 years, while the planted agricultural area was reduced by more than four million hectares.

The peasant leader also detailed the high production costs, which, he said, make profitability unfeasible with current prices.

He explained that preparing the land, buying seed, fertilizer, fumigating and paying wages involves an investment of around 55,500 pesos (almost 3,000 dollars) per hectare, while the sale price of corn is around 4,800 pesos (260 dollars) per ton.

“The accounts don’t work out”said López Ríos. “We demand a new policy of productive development that guarantees self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, or we are ready to generate a great peaceful national revolt,” he concluded.

Last April, the Mexican Government announced an investment of 83,760 million pesos (about 4,551 million dollars) by 2030 to benefit 750,000 agricultural producers and achieve food sovereignty in the face of United States protectionism.

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