This article by Arturo Huerta González originally appeared in the September 23, 2025 edition of La Jornada de Oriente.
The indiscriminate opening of trade, elimination of tariffs, appreciation of the exchange rate (cheap dollar), high interest rates, and fiscal austerity have acted to the detriment of national production, with cheap imports displacing national production, compromising food security in basic grains, in addition to increasing the foreign trade deficit and leading Mexico’s economy to depend on the inflow of capital. This has caused monetary and fiscal policy to be aimed at promoting the inflow of capital through high interest rates and budget cuts so that capital invests where the government stops doing so, at the cost of not having an economic policy to boost national production and employment, plunging the economy into a vicious circle of depending more and more on imports to satisfy national demand. According to the Agricultural Markets Consulting Group, grain self-sufficiency will reach 43.9% by mid-2025, meaning we will import 56.1% of the country’s consumption. Data from INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Census ) indicate that agricultural product imports, as a percentage of agricultural GDP, increased from 10% in 1993 (before NAFTA) to 48% in 2024.
The country’s governments, to lower inflation, determine the price of basic grains based on that set by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which only considers the productive conditions of the United States, which are very different from Mexico’s conditions, and if we add to that the fact that the US has worked with a cheap dollar and that Mexico’s national agricultural producers do not receive the subsidies that US producers have, it means imports are cheaper than national agricultural production, which ends up being displaced. The cost of lowering inflation with cheap imports has resulted in a fall in national production, which leads to loss of income for producers and over-indebtedness of producers and workers, to a foreign trade deficit and to continue acting in favor of the entry of foreign capital, the absence of an agricultural policy in favor of national producers and employment, compromising both food security and sovereignty.
After having been practically self-sufficient in corn before the Free Trade Agreement, Mexico is now the country that imports the most corn in the world
Fiscal austerity policies have restricted the agricultural sector’s budget for decades, rendering it vulnerable to imports, which have increased their share of the national supply. Imports of agricultural products grew by an average of 6.7% annually from 1993 to 2024, while the national GDP grew by an average of 2.0% annually. During the same period, bean imports grew by an average of 15.8% annually. Corn imports grew by an average of 15.0% annually.
After having been practically self-sufficient in corn before the Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has become the country that imports the most corn in the world, a consequence of not having a policy in favor of national producers and leaving them unprotected against imports when national producers did not have the productivity levels, nor the credit and subsidy support to face them.
We will be even less self-sufficient in food with the revision of the USMCA, where the US government is working to reduce its foreign trade deficit with Mexico and is pushing for our country to buy more and sell less. Everything indicates that the Mexican government, in order to maintain the USMCA, will give in on this.
The government has stated that the so-called Plan Mexico is focused on import substitution of basic grains: the problem is that this plan lacks a monetary, credit, exchange rate, trade, and fiscal policy that favors the productive sector. This requires low interest rates, a competitive exchange rate, import tariffs, subsidies, and increased public spending to boost demand and thus increase investment. Such an economic policy does not exist in the country.
The government has set goals to increase basic grain production and lower the price of tortillas by 10% by 2030. It cannot set medium-term goals when it urgently needs to address the problems that the Mexican countryside has been facing for decades. Food sovereignty will not be achieved through fertilizer programs and guaranteed prices for a limited group of producers. All producers must be supported, which involves removing basic grains from the USMCA and ensuring that prices are not fixed around the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Cheap loans, producer subsidies, and expanded dam construction to increase irrigated land are needed. To achieve this, monetary, credit, trade, and fiscal policies must change: the government must stop acting in favor of the financial sector and must work in favor of the national productive sector and employment.
NAFTA decimated Mexican corn production, for both national and sustenance producers, who, unable to support themselves, left rural villages to toil in exploitative maquiladoras, creating massive super-profits for foreign multinationals and accelerating the societal decline initiated by Mexico’s neoliberal turn in the 1980s.
If agricultural policy is not reviewed, the decline in national production will continue, as will low growth in the economy and unemployment, with the consequences of increased crime, further compromising food sovereignty , which, by not having foreign currency to finance imports, or by making the dollar more expensive, will cause food shortages in the country, which would accelerate inflation and poverty and accentuate social instability.
Regarding this, on Thursday, September 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., a meeting will be held in the Narciso Bassols Auditorium of the Faculty of Economics at UNAM , with producers of basic grains from 9 states of the Republic, where they will express their demands to recover national agriculture, to which all interested parties are invited.
Arturo Huerta González is Professor of the Graduate Program at the Faculty of Economics of UNAM since 1975, a columnist responsible for theAlternativa Económicacolumn atLa Jornada de Oriente*, and the author ofLa crisis en Estados Unidos y México: 10 años después.*
Neoliberal Policies Have Compromised Mexico’s Food Sovereignty
September 25, 2025
With the USMCA revision, Mexico will be even less self-sufficient in food as the US pushes for more imports and Mexico lacks a substantive policy to support and develop national agricultural production.
Corporations, Political Clans & Even Religious Groups Have Monopolized Water in Mexico
September 25, 2025September 25, 2025
Behind the abuses of Mexico’s privatized water system are corporations like Kimberly Clark, Banco Azteca, Coca Cola, GoldCorp, as well as political clans like the Monreals and even Mennonites.
People’s Mañanera September 25
September 25, 2025
President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on data centers, IMMEX, pharmaceuticals, Ricardo Salinas, Banamex, and extraditions.
The post Neoliberal Policies Have Compromised Mexico’s Food Sovereignty appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.
From Mexico Solidarity Media via this RSS feed
You must log in or # to comment.