Mexico announces food and agriculture plan that could take the country back to the 1980s

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s new president announced an agriculture plan Tuesday that could make the country’s food production and distribution look a lot more like it did in the 1980s, when meals in Mexico were dominated by tortillas, beans, instant coffee and cheap hot chocolate.

Four decades ago, the ingredients for those meals were often bought at government stores that stocked a few basic goods.

President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged Tuesday to revive those often shabby, limited government stores and continue efforts to achieve “food sovereignty.”

“It is about producing what we eat,” Sheinbaum said of her policy, whose main focus will be on increasing bean and corn production.

Sheinbaum appears to have a deep interest in boosting beans. On Monday, she said, “It is much better to eat a bean taco than a bag of potato chips.”

Agriculture Secretary Julio Berdegué said the focus would be on guaranteeing prices for farmers who grow corn used for tortillas and lowering tortilla prices by 10% after prices jumped a couple of years ago.

The government aims to boost bean production by about 30% in six years to replace imports of beans, and will set up research centers to supply higher-yielding bean seeds.

“Self-sufficiency in beans is a goal the president has set for us,” Berdegué said.

The government will also focus on supporting coffee production, but mainly for instant coffee, which it claims is used by 84% of Mexican households. The plan will also seek to support cocoa production, but mainly for powdered baking and hot chocolate, not fine chocolate bars.

The policies appear to run counter to market trends and what Mexican food sales look like today, when consumption of most of the old basics has fallen.

Most Mexicans today shop at modern grocery stores, and consumption of fresh ground coffee, not instant, has increased enormously, accompanied by a boom in specialized coffee chains and shops.

Meanwhile, bean consumption has been dropping precipitously for decades in Mexico. According to the government’s “2024 Agricultural Panorama” report, Mexicans consume only about 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) of beans annually. That’s less than half of the 35.2 pounds (16 kilograms) consumed per year in 1980.

A combination of factors, including the time it takes to cook dried beans, may be behind this. Amanda Gálvez, a researcher at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, wrote that “we look down at beans because it is considered ‘the food of the poor,’ and we are making a serious mistake,” because beans are a good source of protein.

However, the health benefits aren’t clear: The most common bean recipe in Mexico — refried beans — often contains a considerable dose of lard.

Tortilla consumption has also fallen from nearly 220 pounds (100 kilograms) per capita annually in 2000 to about 165 pounds (75 kilograms) in 2024. Consumers have increasingly taken to buying bread and other bakery products instead of tortillas.

Apart from the challenge of trying to change consumer habits, the policy also runs counter to market trends. While some countries are trying to encourage high-value varietal and specialized chocolate strains, Mexico is focusing on the cheapest products.

While chocolate was first exported to the rest of the world from Mexico, Mexico’s own production has fallen dramatically because of plant diseases and a lack of investment. It dropped from almost 50,000 tons in 2003 to about 28,000 tons in 2022.

And while most Mexican homes may have a jar of instant coffee in their cupboards, that’s not where the tendency — or consumer spending — is headed. According to a Technavio industry report, instant products accounted for only about 37% of the sales value of coffee in Mexico.

Sheinbaum’s focus on self-sufficiency in oil, energy and foodstuffs is a holdover from her predecessor and political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office on Sept. 30.

López Obrador also appears to have passed on his nostalgia for a 1970s-style Mexico — including passenger rail service, state-owned industries, tight-knit families and small corner stores — to Sheinbaum.

The agriculture plan comes one day after Sheinbaum announced a complete “junk food” ban on salty, fried, processed snacks or sweetened beverages and soft drinks in schools, starting within six months.

But the government’s track record in actually changing consumer behavior is poor, columnist Javier Tejado wrote Tuesday in the newspaper El Universal. He reminded readers that the government banned junk food advertisements aimed at children in 2014.

“The result after ten years of prohibitions?” Tejado wrote. “Things are worse than when they started in 2014; Mexicans have decided to keep consuming things they like.”

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