First modification:
The year-on-year inflation in Mexico of 7.72%, the highest rate in 21 years, triggered the price of corn tortillas, while the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador promotes an “anti-inflation plan” to control the price of 24 products of the basic basket, including corn and tortillas.
The tacos are in danger. The war in Ukraine has caused a rise in the cost of inputs and an increase in the price of corn, essential for the production of corn tortillas, a product consumed by 98% of Mexicans.
In La Morena, a traditional tortilleria in the Pensil Sur neighborhood, in the north of Mexico City, the assistant Carmen Hernández now deals with a clientele upset by this increase in prices, a phenomenon that she had not experienced during the 12 years that she worked in this business.
“He gets angry, of course. People actually believe that this situation of raising the tortilla is ours, but in reality it is not. It is the same increase in corn that makes one increase the kilo of tortilla,” says Hernández. .
In Mexico, corn tortilla prices rose 17.42% annually in the first half of April, that’s more than double headline inflation of 7.72%, Mexico’s highest rate in 21 years.
“For a long time the tortilla always cost the same,” but “from a few years to now the increase has been disproportionate,” says Isaac Sánchez, the administrator of La Morena.
Sánchez affirms that “there has been an increase of 20 to 25% in two years. The climate crisis has hit corn because the drought has meant that there is less, cost more, coupled with the conflict in Russia and Ukraine, that has driven the issue of grains in the world crazy, and we can say that it has risen and will rise ”.
Two years ago, a kilo of tortilla cost 15 pesos or about 75 cents on the dollar, but now it is 20 pesos or about 1 dollar. In calculations, this means that for the same amount of money a family now obtains between 10 and 12 fewer tortillas.
The tortilla factory has 16 employees and produces about 1,800 kilograms of tortillas daily. But they are not the only ones, there are more than 110,000 businesses there that make corn tortillas and grind nixtamal, corn cooked with water and lime, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, Inegi.
All businesses now face the wrath of their customers for price gouging. “We have had to explain why and try to offer them a product according to their needs, although without a doubt we can say that we are selling a little less because people also consume less. Maybe offer them other alternatives, but in the end nothing can substitute,” says Sánchez.
an uncertain plan
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently announced the “anti-inflation plan” of “guarantee prices” that seeks to control 24 products of the basic basket, including corn and tortillas.
Lopez Obrador asked the peasants to “plant corn, beans, the basics, because they are facing famine, inflation with self-consumption,” although Mexico is already self-sufficient in white corn for consumption.
“We are very nervous in the industrial sector because we do not know what those measures are going to be taken. We are very afraid of price controls because what allows us to deal with the situation of price increases is that the price of tortillas is free,” said Blanca Mejía, representative of the Governing Council of the Traditional Mexican Tortilla.
A year ago a ton of corn was around 6,900 Mexican pesos, or about 345 dollars, but after the war a ton is on the market for 8,900 pesos or 445 dollars. For the sector, another challenge is the increase in energy prices, as well as the loss of subsidies for the extraction of water wells.
In Mexico, 98% of the population eats tortillas, this represents a per capita consumption of 75 kilograms per year, which is equivalent to almost 10 tortillas per day per Mexican, according to figures from the Institute of Ecology, Inecol.
with EFE
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