But « . Corn from one field can pollinate corn in nearby fields, » cuevas says. « To make sure you keep the purest corn, you need to choose the best plant seeds in the middle of the field and not around the field. If you wait to select the seeds after the corn has been stored, there is no way to know if it has grown at the edge of the field, where it could be contaminated or in the middle. She notes, « People are now coming from Canada and Russia in search of indigenous corn. Chefs are willing to pay more for maize of exceptional quality, so there are farmers who are very interested. But we still have the same problems we started with: not enough land to grow more maize, and not an easy way to connect farmers with someone in another country who wants to buy their produce. « Making our own Nixtamal is an obligation, » he says. But it`s worth it for us because it`s fantastic corn and we want to support the producers in Oaxaca. We are very proud to send a thousand dollars or more to Mexican corn farmers every month. Like the ancient Mayan civilizations that flourished further south, the ancestors of Oaxaca`s 16 indigenous groups worshipped the corn gods, performed planting and harvesting rituals, and developed sophisticated corn mythologies.
Life revolved around staple foods that produced enough food to feed the peasants who grew them, as well as the elites who oversaw society. This trend in corn trade between the United States and Mexico is due to the very different characteristics of corn cultivation in Mexico and the United States. The corn sector in the United States is much larger than the corn sector in Mexico. Per capita production in the United States is 1.1 tons compared to 0.2 tons in Mexico. Corn farms in Mexico are small, each averaging 3.6 hectares, and government policies support smallholder agriculture with direct payments and other programs. Corn farms in the U.S. average 101 acres. Mexican corn farms also have lower yields than the U.S.
— an average of 3.6 tons per acre compared to 10.9 tons in the U.S. Between 2016 and 2018, U.S. production averaged 373.4 MMT per year, while Mexico produced a total of 27.6 billion in the same three years. Therefore, the United States acts primarily as a corn exporter, while Mexico is primarily involved as an importer. Ongoing negotiations will follow a tight schedule due to next year`s July elections in Mexico and midterm elections in the United States a few months later. We should learn in the next six months what form NAFTA 2.0 will take. One possible outcome to watch out for is a bilateral agreement between Canada and the United States. « The farmers knew Flavio personally, so they were willing to take the risk, » says Willcox. « We were able to assemble 50 kilos here and 200 kilos there, and we were able to sell 10 tons of maize in Masienda.
It`s really the relationships that Flavio has built over the last 30 years that have allowed us to go and buy their corn. Willcox says she has seen anecdotal evidence that her efforts are working. « In villages where we didn`t grow enough maize to feed the local population, we saw people who rejected six-month farm contracts in the United States because they thought they could make enough money as corn farmers. » Mexico and the United States were recently involved in a sugar dispute. The dispute was settled in June when Mexico agreed to limit its exports of refined sugar to the United States. It is likely that Mexico will see this as a temporary solution and seek a permanent solution with NAFTA. Mexico is the largest importer of U.S. corn and has used its corn imports from the U.S. as a bargaining chip. In fact, Mexico has threatened to buy corn from South America to replace its corn imports from the United States. The closure of the Mexican U.S. corn market would lead to a significant drop in U.S. corn prices, which would be particularly painful for the corn belt states.
When producer prices fell in response to the influx of imports, » Instead of pulling out of corn, as economists would predict as a rational choice, and migrating to the cities and getting jobs in a booming industry, which didn`t happen, [Mexican producers] actually planted more corn in many places, » Carlsen says. Because corn is the safety net. If you have nothing else, you can still eat. Ortiz de CONABIO agrees: « Older farmers fear that the next generation will not continue the tradition of growing their own food. .
