Before the NAFTAthe Mexico's economy was practically closed to the outside world. and the same thing happened with food, the concept of food safety It was determined by the need to internally produce the food that the population demanded, which meant that practically, international trade was very limited in both imports and exports.
From the commercial opening in 1994Mexico changed the rules of the game by opening the economy to the rest of the world, mainly to the United States and Canada, establishing a series of public policies in the case of agriculture to give gradualness to the impacts of opening, especially in the sectors that They considered themselves less favored by NAFTA, as is the case with grain producers.
This situation is clearly reflected in the evolution of the trade balance agriculture and agroindustrial of Mexico, which is an indicator that reflects the result of the difference between what Mexico exports of food and what it imports to complement its food needs, and where the growth of exports is expressed at double-digit rates, in products such as tequila , beer, avocado, berries and vegetables mainly, in such a way that until 2015 the balance of the trade balance with respect to the rest of the world was positive.
This surplus It increased until reaching a maximum in 2020 and reducing in the last three years by 45 percent as a result of the greater growth in grain imports with respect to exports.
In 2023, almost 52 billion dollars will be exported and just over 44 billion dollars were imported, with a surplus of 7,576 million dollars. Mexico is currently the seventh food exporting country in the world and these exceed the foreign exchange obtained from sales of oil products and foreign tourism.
Regarding imports, mainly grains, they also grew significantly despite the compensatory policies, where a stagnation of production is practically evident according to the figures expressed in the comparison of the 2007 censuses and 2022, so we are importing more and more grains with a significant reduction in the food security index in such a way that by 2024 it is estimated, aggravated by the drought, a dependence of 50 percent on imports.
As can be seen, the result of food security in the context of free trade with treaties such as the TMEC It is linked to the complementarity of the economies of the countries participating in this treaty, where we export more based on products where we have greater potential such as those mentioned, and we import from the United States and Canada especially grains such as yellow corn, bread-making wheat, oilseeds and beans, where we have less productive potential.
Therefore, if we want to maintain food sovereignty, we must follow the recommendations of the FAO, which indicates that we must produce at least 75 percent of our requirements so as not to be subject to the vagaries of markets and crises. international as happened with the COVID health emergency and war conflicts.
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