Gone Missing: 28,000 Tons of Maize in Mexico
Yesterday an extraordinary half page advertisement appeared in Mexico City newspapers. This year 28 thousand tons of maize have been stolen from trucks or railroad cars. That’s enough maize to keep Mexico City in tortillas for a whole month. And with maize prices at around $280 a ton, it’s enough to keep the robbers in spare change for quite some time.
Threat to the supply of basic products
The ad was posted by the National Chamber of Industrialized Maize, which it turns out is the association of enterprises that turn maize into edible products: masa for tortillas and tamales, snacks, and animal food. Since the half dozen points where these robberies occur are well known, the Chamber is demanding that the government do something to stop this “leakage.”
It’s well known that large quantities of gasoline and crude ($2-4 billion’s worth) are stolen from Pemex, the national company and sold nationally and internationally (including the US).
Now Mexico’s other fuel, the raw materials for the tortillas and meat that keep humans going, is being ripped off. Assuming the facts in the ad are correct (and I can hear the conspiracy theories beginning to buzz) here are a couple of thoughts:
- It’s not clear what kind of maize is being stolen, imported maize (largely for animal feed essential for the rapidly growing consumption of meat, poultry, and eggs) or national white maize (for tortillas).
- Few people grind their own maize in Mexico. Processors of some kind must be buying this (I think even if it’s imported maize). This quantity may be tiny in terms of total Mexican production. It’s quite enough to need some sophisticated logistics.
- I can’t help thinking of the poem in the Confucian Book of Songs composed by Chinese peasants several hundred years before Christ in protest at the way the aristocrats took substantial portions of their harvest by force. The refrain is:
Large rats! Large rats! Do not eat our grain.
Who are these large rats? And where do they fit in the Mexican economy in all its shades from white through gray to black?
I am sick and tired of large rats. Mexico has always had a problem with them, but now it is certainly reaching critical mass. It saddens me to the core. Keep us posted on these developments Rachel, thanks for being my eyes and ears in my home town!
Yes, it’s hard to know where to start.