Potato organizations are urging the U.S. to maintain a “trust but verify” stance ensuring fresh potatoes can be imported to all of Mexico.
Mexico's Supreme Court in late April lifted a longtime ban on full importation of U.S. fresh potatoes, allowing access to 130 million new consumers. The imports were previously allowed only within about 16 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Despite these positive developments, as we approach the finish line in this longstanding dispute, there are serious concerns about the long-term prospects for successful market access for U.S. potatoes in Mexico,” National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles wrote to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Seventeen state potato groups also signed the June 28 letter.
Mexico's government is “only grudgingly allowing access for U.S. potatoes, as the Mexican potato cartel (CONPAPA) is exerting great political power to impede competition with the U.S.,” Quarles said. “This causes serious concern among U.S. potato growers that access to the Mexican market will be only temporary before Mexican officials invent a way to halt imports again.”
Quarles wrote that in April Mexico's agricultural regulatory agency, SENASICA, without notice, required additional sanitary samplings of U.S. potatoes “to be sent to a laboratory selected and paid for by CONPAPA. The clear goal of this unilateral change is to manufacture a reason to close the market to U.S. fresh potatoes at some point.”
He said the Mexican government and potato industry for years acted to undermine agreements made to fully open the market to U.S. fresh potatoes. He listed seven examples since 2003.
“Given this history and these recent developments, we urge USDA and USTR to maintain a ‘trust but verify’ stance with Mexico,” Quarles said. “Without some sort of leverage, the pattern of CONPAPA’s political influence causing the Mexican government to close the market will simply repeat itself.”
As for a solution, “to help ensure Mexico’s commitment to allowing full access for our potatoes into Mexico, one option is to offer any additional access for Mexican avocados to the U.S. as provisional,” he said. “The Mexican avocado industry would therefore be an active participant in urging their government to resist the political pressure that harmed U.S. farmers in the past.
“Absent such leverage, we believe that any market access the Mexican government may provide to the U.S. will not be durable,” Quarles said.
If Mexico delays reinstating full access for U.S. fresh potatoes or illegitimately restricts the market, “we strongly urge USDA and USTR to move forward with the dispute resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and thereby seek to apply tariffs against Mexican exports to the U.S. such as avocados,” he said.
Idaho Potato Commission International Marketing Director Ross Johnson said the state’s farmers finished planting before the Mexican Supreme Court decision. They did not plant based on that market opening fully.
“We’re going to be just fine,” he said. “We already have a lot of demand for our product and are confident we can move our crop.”
But opening all of Mexico to U.S. fresh potato imports would increase overall demand, Johnson said. Consumers there would have access to more varieties, for example.
The Idaho commission is fostering relationships with brokers, distributors and retailers there, he said.
June 29, 2021 at 10:30PM
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U.S industry seeks help in keeping Mexico open to fresh potatoes - Capital Press
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