MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico aims to as much as triple its fertilizer production, the government said on Sunday, to support its plan to boost local agriculture production and control consumer price inflation.
The government was investing in existing fertilizer factories, it said in a statement, in line with its bid to lessen reliance on foreign imports and ensure fair prices for staple foods such as corn, rice and beans by increasing production.
Consumer prices rose 7.68% in the year through April and in the month alone increased 0.54%, according to non-seasonally adjusted figures posted by the national statistics agency.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in a series of meetings with producers over the weekend, said a program to provide free fertilizer to farmers would be expanded to several more states, including Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Veracruz.
“We have to produce (organic fertilizer), because it is very good in theory and what is natural is also the best, but we need to increase production,” Lopez Obrador said at an event for the promotion of the government’s campaign to increase production of basic foods.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
