Mexican producers protest against potato imports from the United States

The National Confederation of Potato Producers of the Mexican Republic (Conpapa) ruled against the importation of fresh potatoes from the United States, due to its "high risk of containing quarantine pests".

The producers accused the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader) and the National Service for Health, Safety and Food Quality (Senasica) of not reporting the risks involved in importing these potatoes.

"This threatens not only the production of fresh potatoes in Mexico, but also that of other important crops for the country, such as corn, chili, tomato and sugar cane, which threatens the phytosanitary safety of the Mexican countryside, against food sovereignty and against the subsistence of thousands of agricultural producers,” Conpapa reported in a press release.

“The authority has left 8,700 Mexican potato producers, 7 million day laborers and one million eight hundred thousand tons in a state of vulnerability and defenselessness, by limiting them to be able to take timely preventive measures to care for and protect their activity and production,” they reported.

According to potato producers, US potatoes are treated with a chemical product – not authorized by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) – that could be a risk to the health of consumers.

The importation of US potatoes “represents a dangerous risk for the health of our soils and crops. Unfortunately, we will have as a consequence more poverty and agri-food dependency,” they concluded.