Mexico Sees El Nino Bringing Agriculture Relief From Drought Jean Guerrero - Dow Jones
go to original March 16, 2012

MEXICO CITY - Mexico is expecting El Nino to bring much-needed rains to various agricultural parts of the country in the near future, providing relief from prolonged widespread drought, the country's Agriculture Minister Francisco Mayorga said Thursday.

"We don't know exactly how much or when, but La Nina will pass and that will help improve the situation," he said, noting that weather typical of El Nino is already replacing La Nina climate conditions in some agricultural areas of t he country.

La Nina has caused unusually dry weather throughout the country's territory over the past year, leading to the deaths of thousands of livestock and more than a million hectares of crops, especially grains. Mayorga said rainfall in some of the worst-affected states last month in combination with federal resources has already helped productivity return to its normal pace in some areas.

"Production is being re-established," he said, adding that producers with irrigation in northern Mexico have ramped up the production of pasture, used for livestock feed, to offset losses.

Mayorga said the fall-winter harvest is expected to yield 30% more corn, and as a result imports of white corn, which reached an unusually high level last year of 1.4 million tons, are expected to drop to 1 million tons.

Contact Jean Guerrero at jean.guerrero@dowjones.com

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!