With the seventh round of NAFTA negotiations underway, the Mexican National Federation of Corn Farmers said the redrawn pact should limit corn imports into the country, reported Xinhua, the Chinese news agency. The president of the farm group, Juan Pablo Rojas, said Mexican farmers have the capacity to supply their nation’s needs.
“We have no purpose to produce more corn each year and have nowhere to sell it, because large national consumers already make their purchases on the international market,” said Rojas. The United States is the largest corn supplier to Mexico. Imports of U.S.-grown yellow corn are used to feed livestock, while domestically grown white corn is used in staple foods such as tortillas.
Because of uncertainty over the NAFTA negotiations, Mexico is testing other suppliers. It imported more than 583,000 tonnes of corn from Brazil last year, nearly 10 times the tally in 2016, said Reuters. Corn imports from the United States totaled 14.7 million tonnes last year.
Canada and Mexico are the No. 2 and No. 3 customers for U.S. ag exports. U.S. farm groups say the new NAFTA must maintain duty-free access to the neighboring markets. “The impact of U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA could be devastating for farms and ranches of all sizes,” wrote Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in a recent op-ed.