Posted on 01/13/2007 8:15:33 PM PST by BunnySlippers
Prices for corn tortillas, a staple of Mexican diet and culture, are soaring south of the border.
Some tortilla prices in Mexico have risen as much as 60 percent, hurting the low-income people who depend on it as their basic food.
Elizabeth Rosas, a 20-year-old office cleaner in Mexico City, was discouraged to find that her usual tortilla shop this week raised the price of its corn tortillas from 8 pesos (73 cents) to 10 pesos (91 cents) a kilogram.
"My family doesn't have the budget to pay more for tortillas," said Rosas, who makes $40 a week and shares a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, five relatives and her newborn son. --- Just why tortillas cost so much remains murky.
Corn prices are spiking in the United States, with crop yields low and demand high. The production of the gasoline additive ethanol has taken off in the past year, consuming millions of bushels of corn. --- Mexico also said it will import 650,000 tons of white corn, mainly from the United States, to help lower tortilla prices. --- Some economists say the culprit could be globalization, as products around the world increasingly are linked in a complex supply chain.
"The price of oil is driving up the price of corn (because of increased ethanol production), which is driving up the price of tortillas," said Peter Navarro, a business professor at UC Irvine. "You push on one thing and another thing moves," added Navarro, the author of "If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks."
He said the U.S. ethanol stampede could be thought of "as a regressive tax on Mexico, because it raises the price of a basic commodity. In economics, we call these general equilibrium effects. Something happens in one market and it ripples through other markets."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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Prices for corn tortillas, a staple of Mexican diet and culture, are soaring south of the border.
Some tortilla prices in Mexico have risen as much as 60 percent, hurting the low-income people who depend on it as their basic food.
Elizabeth Rosas, a 20-year-old office cleaner in Mexico City, was discouraged to find that her usual tortilla shop this week raised the price of its corn tortillas from 8 pesos (73 cents) to 10 pesos (91 cents) a kilogram.
"My family doesn't have the budget to pay more for tortillas," said Rosas, who makes $40 a week and shares a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, five relatives and her newborn son.
---
Just why tortillas cost so much remains murky.
Corn prices are spiking in the United States, with crop yields low and demand high. The production of the gasoline additive ethanol has taken off in the past year, consuming millions of bushels of corn.
---
Mexico also said it will import 650,000 tons of white corn, mainly from the United States, to help lower tortilla prices.
---
Some economists say the culprit could be globalization, as products around the world increasingly are linked in a complex supply chain.
"The price of oil is driving up the price of corn (because of increased ethanol production), which is driving up the price of tortillas," said Peter Navarro, a business professor at UC Irvine. "You push on one thing and another thing moves," added Navarro, the author of "If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks."
He said the U.S. ethanol stampede could be thought of "as a regressive tax on Mexico, because it raises the price of a basic commodity. In economics, we call these general equilibrium effects. Something happens in one market and it ripples through other markets."
I thought NAFATA flooded Mexico with cheap American corn driving Mexicans off their land to become illegal immigrants. That was Bush's fault. Now they are entitled to cheap corn but can't get it due to bush's energy policy.
It's a conspiracy I tell ya! Big Corn is in cahoots with Big Oil!
Viva Mexico! Glorious glorious Mexico.
Mexican farmers couldn't compete and left (often for the U.S., to work for Old McDonald, who's working for...) meaning there are less corn producers in Mexico to start with.
With the end of restrictions on agricultural imports to Mexico ending this year, it's gonna get even hairier.
So, yeah... in a roundabout way, it is NAFTA's "fault".
I don't care, unless it affects the price of bourbon. Then I'm mad!
And then there is mr in between. That is the successful independant farmer as opposed to the hilbillies who didn't know what they were doing and got squeezed out.
Save the corn for tortillas (and good whiskey), drill ANWR.
I bet you believe that corn can be grown in quantity just about everywhere.
And I bet you think it isn't fertilizer intensive.
Maybe if the Mexican mom and pop could get ahold of the same technology that the American Mom and Pop can, they could make a go of their farm, but that's not the plan is it? I bet your buds are down there gobbling up their abandoned farms as I post.
Rice, Beans and corn tortillas, food of the gods.
We're on to your Marxist debating tactics......But... it's funny, my Mexican friend whose family lost their ranch in Michoacan due to continued obstruction in their efforts to farm it by the Mex Gov, says the same thing. He's legal BTW and saw the writing on the Mexican wall a long time ago. I thought he was nuts until I encountered the OBLers on this forum
There are problems with corporate farming (beyond the financing) like it's intensive need for fertilizer and fuel that may not make the model that works in Iowa or Nebraska necessarily the one to use in Michoacán or Tlaxcala. The problem with these planners and international trade specialists is they tend to think "one size fits all". And they don't
"It is typical of the intellectual confusion in the environmentalist movement that many of its more extreme activists attack the wicked capitalists and imperialists and related globalization while simultaneously pressurizing governments to implement policies that can only impoverish developing countries -- simply in order to pander to the prejudices of well meaning but ill-informed people in the rich countries or to the "power-seeking" agendas of bureaucrats." --A Poverty of Reason Wilfred Beckerman
UH OH! So much for the dollar menu at Taco Bell.
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