Tomato growers in Mexico have united in their opposition to efforts by the Florida Tomato Exchange to terminate the bilateral trade agreement for the fruit’s entry to the US market, which has been in operation for 16 years.
On 5 July Mexico’s tomato growers filed their formal opposition to the action, arguing that the agreement is in the “best interests of growers, consumers and the US government and that the US growers have not met the statutory burden for termination”, according to a joint statement from the industry.
The statement was signed by a group of Mexican tomato grower associations including: Caades Sinaloa; the Baja California Agricultural Council; the Mexican Protected Horticulture Association (Amhpac); the Sonora Regional Agricultural Union of Vegetable, Tomato and Legume Growers; the National Confederation of Vegetable Producers; and Mexico’s Tomato Product System.
“We are disappointed,” said Rosario Beltran, chairman of Caades’s Commission for Research and Defense of Horticultural products (CIDH). “This agreement has worked well for 16 years, bringing stability to the market and settling one of the largest bilateral trade disputes between the United States and Mexico.”
Beltran said if Florida’s growers are successful in reigniting the so-called 'trade war', it would have “an enormous negative impact on industries on both sides of the border and prices will increase significantly for US consumers”.
The original agreement between the US Department of Commerce and Mexican tomato
growers entered into effect on 1 November 1996, and suspended the antidumping investigation that was ongoing at that time.
The agreement established a minimum price, set by the US Department of Commerce, under which the Mexican growers agreed not to sell in the US market.
Since that time, the agreement has been renegotiated and renewed in 2002 and 2008.
On all three occasions, the Mexican industry said the US Department of Commerce made determinations that the agreement 'completely eliminates any injurious effect of Mexican tomato imports, prevents the price suppression or undercutting in the US market and, most importantly, is in the public interest'.
“The agreement is working for everyone – US growers, Mexican growers and US consumers, who otherwise would have been the victims of arbitrary price increases and suffered at the supermarket check-out line,” said Manuel Cazares, chairman of Mexico’s Tomato Product System.
During the last 16 years, growers from Mexico claim they have worked closely with the US Department of Commerce to improve the efficacy of the agreement.
Moreover, the agreement apparently has built-in mechanisms to address exactly the type of concerns that Florida has expressed in its recent press release.
Additionally, unlike Florida the Mexican industry claims to have invested in technology, evolved into diverse growing areas, and cultivated a greater selection of tomato varieties which it said are distinguished as more “flavorsome and appealing to consumers”.
“The economic pressures cited by the Florida growers are their own doing – instead of
innovating and evolving, they rely on outdated technology and grow tomato varieties no longer popular with US consumers,” explained Manuel Valladolid of the Baja California Agricultural Council.
