Specific guidelines for Mexico’s support programs were announced recently for sorghum, wheat and yellow corn during the 2007-08 fall/winter season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) said. Mexico's Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Foodstuffs (SAGARPA) said it will provide approximately $600 million pesos (roughly $ 46.1 million) of support covering 2.48 million tons of sorghum, 1.59 million tons of wheat and approximately 480,000 tons of yellow corn under the "Forward Contract Program."

 

The objectives of the supports for the forward contracts are to:

 

• Guarantee the growers the advance sale of their crops, through the implementation of forward contracts;

 

• Guarantee the buyers a secure supply source;

 

• Provide certainty to the production-consumption process; and

 

• Promote order in the grains market.

 

The announcement stated that through SAGARPA’s Support and Services for Agriculture and Livestock Marketing Agency, it will provide payments for growers or buyers under the commodity hedging program. The grains to be supported are those planted between October 2007 and January 2008 and harvested and marketed between April and August 2008.

 

 

 

World Grain