How important is trade with the country of Mexico for U.S. farmers? The answer is, very important.

If you look at the whole picture, it's the most important country in the world for grain trade. Mexico is a very large customer for U.S. grain.

You may think, due to population, China would be more important. Well, yes China is huge. They can buy a lot of grain.

But getting the grain shipped half way around the world has to be factored in to the cost of doing business. We can ship to Mexico simply by truck or rail, and that is a huge advantage.

Now let's look at the facts. Mexico is now the largest market for U.S. corn, with 13.3 million metric tons (523.6 million bushels) of imports in 2015/2016, as well as the top buyer of U.S. barley in 2015/2016 with 116,000 metric tons (5.33 million bushels) of malted barley imports.

Mexico is also the second largest customer for U.S.sorghum, with 2015/2016 imports of 1.9 million metric tons and 424,000 metric tons (16.7 million bushels), respectively.

We need to focus on keeping these relations in tact in order to maintain the numbers. Mexico has the option of buying these products from Argentina and Brazil.

 

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