Eating some tacos will cost you more expensive: high corn prices triggered the cost of tortilla

High prices in the cost of corn have triggered costs in the kilo of tortilla, a staple food in the Mexican diet, so the product has reached record highs. And it is that in just one month, from March 4 to April 4, it registered an increase of 5.08%.

The National System for Information and Market Integration (SIINM) of the Ministry of Economy (SE) released the Monthly Information on Daily Prices for Tortilla in Tortillerias and Self-Services in Mexico, detailing that as of March 4, a kilogram of tortilla cost 19.07 pesos, but by Monday, April 4 reached 20.04 pesos per kilo.

According to information from SIINM, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, is the city where food is sold the cheapest at 13.56 pesos, followed by the metropolitan area of Puebla with 13.80 pesos.

In contrast, the city of Hermosillo Sonora is where the most expensive is offered, at 26 pesos per kilo and in Tampico, Tamaulipas and in Nogales, Sonora, where the cost of a kilo of tortilla is 25 pesos.

On average, the price of food is 20 pesos, which is only offered in 10 cities of the country: Saltillo (Sonora), Tapachula (Chiapas), Mexico City, Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, Celaya (Guanajuato), León (Guanajuato) Pachuca (Hidalgo), Guadalajara and its Metropolitan Area (Jalisco), as well as in Coatzacoalcos ( Veracruz).

“This is derived from a 21% increase in the price of corn in the domestic market between March 2021 and March 2022, going from 6,057 pesos (306.80 dollars) a ton to 7,327 pesos (370.03 dollars) per ton,” said Álvaro López Ríos, Secretary General of the National Union of Agricultural Workers (UNTA) in a communiqué released on Monday, April 4.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), during the first half of March, national inflation reached 7.3%. However, inflation on the northern border reached 8% in the same period, the highest rate in all regions of the country.

But the rise in the price of corn has also been impacted by the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And it is that the future price rose by 36.5%.

The fact is that both nations together supplied 19.5 per cent of world exports of cereal and is currently estimated at 16.6 per cent, a reduction of 6 million tons.

According to López Ríos, in the last seven years corn production in Mexico has not only not increased, but it has registered an average annual negative growth rate of 0.6 per cent, so the product has to be imported.

Added to that are the costs in the prices of fertilizers used in agriculture, since average prices increased by 153% between March 2021 and so far in April 2022.

The shortage of water for irrigation is another factor that would slow down grain production.

According to data from SNIIM, in just 15 years the cost of tortilla has tripled. And it is that in March 2007 the price per kilogram in the country was on average 8 pesos and 60 cents. But by March 2022, the cost per kilo ranged from 18 to 19 pesos.

A video recently went viral on TikTok where some young people from a private school made a trend where they had to guess how much a kilogram of tortilla.

“I don't know, or six pesos?” , “20 pesos?” , “I don't know, 14 pesos? , “five pesos?” , were some of the answers that the participants of the video gave with laughter.

The responses sparked countless criticisms among users of the social network.

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