“It’s about working with all the actors in the chain to see how we can lower this price. We are already talking to them. We are going to invite them to a national agreement for corn and tortillas with a very ambitious goal of lowering the price.” price of tortilla during the six-year term up to 10% in real terms,” Berdegué noted in the morning conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
One issue that must be guaranteed is fair prices for non-transgenic white corn to Mexican producers, but also with consumers in mind.
In that sense, it also seeks to increase local production of various foods to achieve food sovereignty and help with better prices.
“President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that we have to increase the production of products such as corn, beans, rice, milk, sorghum, also some vegetables, onion, tomato and chili, which have a great impact on prices. that families pay when they go to buy their food, so we have to produce more.
We have identified almost 1,200 municipalities in Mexico that have two characteristics: the first is that they have high levels of poverty and, secondly, that there is a lot of small and medium commercial agriculture.
These small and medium-sized commercial producers, who number almost 600,000, will be supported during the six-year period with technical support and credit, as well as insurance to face droughts. They will also be helped in marketing and in general with all the services available to the Ministry of Agriculture.
No more buying beans abroad
The head of Agriculture added that another important goal is to stop importing beans and for everything to be produced in Mexico.
In the country, one million tons of beans are consumed per year, of which 300,000 are imports.
“How are we going to do it? The first thing is that a new entity is going to be created called the Welfare Seed Producer, it will probably have its headquarters in Zacatecas, this entity is going to start producing very good quality seeds, Because that is the main problem we have in seed production, they have been degenerating, (…) through this new entity, a kind of company, we are going to give producers the amount of seed they need every year. to upload these 300,000 tons that we are missing,” he explained.
