The Drought of '96. That's what television weather forecasters in the United States would inauspiciously name the conditions currently plaguing residents of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. South of the border, the drought is a four-year story-- un crisis that extends from barren fields to the local market to the dinnertable. Because of a drastic drop in corn production, the traditional, ff not obligatory, corn tortilla is temporarily disappearing in many households and restaurants in Ciudad Juárez.
"With no rain, there's no corn, there's nothing," says Laura Flores, who works at La Zultana, a Cuidad Juarez tortilla shop. Flores, like others in the business, has seen fewer sacks of corn in the market, which means less daily production, shorter hours, and lower profits. People who at one time bought four kilos of tortillas (about nine pounds) per day now purchase one kilo, she says.
Government officials have attributed the crisis to a shortage of corn flour resulting from the drought in northern Mexico. Fewer hectares of corn have been planted, and imports have increased by necesity. According to a recent Associated Press report, the Mexican government has earmarked $157 million in drought relief, though estimates of crop and cattle losses run closer to $1 billion.
Owners of Juárez's almost 600 tortilla shops are facing shortages of corn flour and Maseca, a ready made mix. With 20 years in the business, Oscar Vasquez of Rio Grande Tortilleria hasn't seen anything like the current situation. "Every day we usually use 25 sacks of Maseca (20 kilos per bag). For the last two weeks, they've only been delivering 14 or 15 sacks a day."
Despite these reports, the crisis situation has almost passed, according to Salvador Banuelos, director of the industrial union that governs the tortilla industry. "Since the middle of last week, the situation has normalized. They are tortilla producers in the whole country to try and improve the situation," he says.
According to Banuelos, the current price of tortillas (set by the Mexican government) is as much a villain affecting the industry as weather conditions. The current price now rests at 1.7 pesos per kilo (about 60 cents). Traditionally low prices have kept owners from modernizing, and many work with equipment about 20 years old. "There is an internal crisis in this sector that's critical," he says.
The immediate crisis, however, has agricultural roots. In late March, agriculture secretary Francisco Labastida Ochoa said that an on-going water shortage prevented farmers in northern states and other regions of Mexico from planting 500,000 hectares (1.25 million acres) of corn, soybeans, sorghum, and wheat. Some agricultural producers, however, estimate the amount as closer to 900,000 hectares (2.25 million acres). As a result, Mexico's total production of grains is expected to decline by almost 3 n-dllion metric tons (3.3 minion tons) this year. According to a report from Chihuahua's agriculture department, the average farm yield in the state has dropped to between 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and 360 kilograms (792 pounds) per hectare from before-drought yields of 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) per hectare. Corn yields alone have fallen from 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) to 470 kilograms (1,034 pounds).
Where most Mexicans notice the drop in production is, of course, in long lines at neighborhood tortillerias and alongside the day's meals. "It's the food most Mexican," Vasquez says. "There are flour tortillas, but a Mexican is not accustomed to them." Vasquez expects that prices for tortillas will rise in the near furture, as Mexico relies upon imported corn. But with no end in sight to the drought, opinions seem few. As Flores say, "You can't obtain what the land can't give."