SASKATOON — Mexico is buying far more dry beans than usual, according to an agricultural consultant from that country.
The country usually imports about 135,000 tonnes of the crop annually.
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“This year, during October, November and December, we already imported 150,000 tonnes,” Vicente Mendoza recently stated in a Global Pulse Confederation article.
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That is good news for growers in other parts of North America, said John Ferguson, owner of Ferguson Brothers of St. Thomas Ltd. in southern Ontario.
“They’ve got to go somewhere because Canada and the U.S. are both going to be up big time in acres,” said Ferguson.
“We need the Mexicans to keep buying.”
Mexico has had three straight crop failures due to poor rainfall during the spring-summer crop season, which runs from July through December.
Growers have either shifted out of beans at the last minute due to the lack of rain or they planted the crop and the rains didn’t arrive when it was flowering in September.
That first crop of beans provides 80 percent of Mexico’s production. The second crop is planted in October and harvested from the end of January through April, Mendoza said in the GPC article.
He is forecasting a further reduction in bean acres in 2024 due to a lack of financing, poor seed availability and forecasts calling for another drought year.
The government has provided no assistance to growers.
“The solution so far seems to be simply increasing imports,” said Mendoza.
“This is the only mechanism we have left to ensure there are enough beans for internal demand.”
Corn and beans are staples in the Mexican diet. Imported beans are more expensive than domestically produced beans, so consumers will have to get used to paying more at the grocery store, he told the GPC.
Mexico consumes about 750,000 tonnes of beans. The split is 320,000 tonnes of black beans, 300,000 tonnes of pintos, 75,000 tonnes of yellow beans and the remainder being other varieties.
Most of the country’s imports come from the U.S., but there has also been an increase in shipments from Argentina.
Stat Publishing reports that the U.S. shipped out 223,500 tonnes of beans between September 2023 and January 2024, a 62 per cent increase over the same five-month period a year ago.
That total includes 49,300 tonnes of pintos, 42,100 tonnes of blacks and 38,600 tonnes of navy beans.
Ferguson said Canadian growers benefit from the strong U.S. export program because the two markets are intertwined.
“The more (Mexico) buys the better off we are in Canada and the U.S.,” he said.
His contacts are telling him that black bean acres will be up in every growing region of the two countries, and pintos will also be a popular crop choice for farmers.
Black bean prices have fallen in recent weeks, but both crops remain at historically high levels due in part to the strong Mexican demand.
Ferguson said there are some issues with the Mexican crop that is being harvested right now, but it’s too early to be forecasting what will happen to the bigger crop that will be planted in July.
Contact sean.pratt@producer.com
