The protein system
Mexico feeds 130.9 million people on an unusually balanced diet: 57.6 grams of animal protein and 42.7 grams of plant protein per person per day in 2023.[8, 18] Mexicans eat 78.2 kilograms of meat, 122 kilograms of milk and 13.6 kilograms of fish a year each. Fish consumption is well below the world average of 19.9 kilograms.[9, 10, 11] Maize and beans remain the base of the diet. City dwellers eat 56.7 kilograms of tortillas a year each, and bean output reached 1.2 million tonnes in 2025, enough, the government says, to cover demand.[1, 24]
Pork and chicken dominate livestock farming. Chicken output is forecast at 4.24 million tonnes in 2026 against consumption of 5.34 million, so imports supply about a fifth.[3, 6] Pork output of 1.41 million tonnes covers just under half of the 2.90 million tonnes eaten.[2] Beef is the exception: 2026 output of 2.3 million tonnes matches consumption, but only because of a temporary trade shift, not a bigger herd.[2] Milk output was 13.86 million tonnes in 2025, around 70 per cent of demand, and is forecast at 14.27 million in 2026. Mexico makes only about a tenth of the skimmed milk powder it uses.[5, 25, 30] Eggs are a quiet strength. Mexico produced 2.8 million tonnes in 2018, about 23 kilograms per person, among the highest rates in the world.[4, 27] Wild fisheries land 1.92 million tonnes and fish farms produce 274,000 tonnes.[12, 13]
Feed comes mostly from one supplier. Mexico produced 41.8 million tonnes of compound feed in 2025, the fifth-largest amount in the world, with chickens taking 19.8 million tonnes and pigs 7.2 million.[1] Maize makes up more than half of that feed: about 25 million of the 51.5 million tonnes of maize Mexico uses goes to livestock.[1] Other major feeds include 2.6 million tonnes of soybean meal, 6.7 million tonnes of soybeans and 2.3 million tonnes of distillers' grains.[1, 4]
Durable domestic capacity:
Mexico has a large, modern meat industry. Farms with more than 100,000 birds produce over 75 per cent of its chicken, and integrated firms make 61 per cent of its compound feed.[3, 4] Domestic farms produce about 75 per cent of the beef, pork and chicken Mexicans eat, a much stronger position than most large food importers.[2, 3]
The weakness is in the crops underneath. Imports supply over 51 per cent of the maize Mexico uses, farms grow about 26 per cent of the 8.05 million tonnes of wheat it consumes, and home-grown soybeans cover 4 per cent of use.[1, 4] The national food self-sufficiency measure fell from 75 per cent in 2018 to 69.5 per cent in 2022, and 34 per cent of people were food insecure.[19]
The land and water behind farming are at their limit. Irrigation District 025 in Tamaulipas allowed no irrigated maize at all in 2025/26. Sinaloa's dams stood at 29 per cent of capacity in February 2026, after falling to 30-year lows of 13 per cent in the 2023-24 drought. Sonora's wheat output fell 34 per cent because of low reservoirs. Arable land is only 0.154 hectares per person.[1, 17]
Resource headroom:
Chickens and pigs turn feed into meat more efficiently than cattle, but feed makes up over 60 per cent of their production costs. Their growth therefore depends on US harvests.[4]
Mexico has little room to grow more feed at home. Arable land covers 10.3 per cent of the country. In 2022 the country used 44.95 per cent of its available water, most of it for farming, which takes 76.3 per cent of all water drawn.[14, 15, 16, 17] Money is also short. Agriculture produces 3.9 per cent of GDP but employs 11.6 per cent of workers, bad farm loans rose 83 per cent between January 2023 and September 2025, and white maize prices in February 2026 were about 22 per cent below a year earlier, below the cost of growing it.[1, 18]
Mexico does have one home-grown source of feed protein: its 2024 sardine and anchovy catch of about 959,000 tonnes supplies a domestic fishmeal industry.[28]
Irrigated area has stalled at 7.30 million hectares since 2019. Cropland and arable land both shrank between 2000 and 2024, and cropland per person fell from 0.26 to 0.19 hectares.[45, 46] USDA judges that the government's Cosechando Soberanía programme has done little for national maize output, and forecasts 2026/27 production down 3 per cent to 24.5 million tonnes even as the programme grows.[1] Farms get about three-quarters of the bank lending their share of the economy would suggest, but water and land are the real limits.[45]
Import exposure:
Mexico's import exposure is unusual. The volumes are huge and almost all come from one country, but they cross a land border rather than a strait. The United States supplies over 99 per cent of Mexico's maize imports, over 99 per cent of its soybean meal, 81 per cent of its wheat, roughly 90 per cent of its dairy and, by one bank's estimate, 70 to 75 per cent of all its farm imports.[1, 4, 31] Mexico bought over USD 1 billion of US skimmed milk powder in 2024, more than 40 per cent of all US dairy sales to Mexico, and all its 46,120 tonnes of imported whey came from the United States.[5]
Recent trade measures have made that relationship less certain. The United States put a 25 per cent tariff on goods that did not qualify under USMCA from March 2025, until the US Supreme Court struck down the underlying emergency tariffs on 20 February 2026. A 10 per cent replacement tariff took effect four days later, and a further 10 per cent tariff on most Mexican goods followed from 24 July 2026 under a separate forced-labour investigation. Goods that qualify under USMCA are exempt from all three.[32, 33] At the first joint review on 1 July 2026, the United States declined to renew the agreement, which now faces review every year.[20, 21] The US also closed its border to Mexican live cattle in May 2025 on animal-health grounds, within days, and kept it shut for more than a year.[22]
No Mexican food or feed import passes through a sea chokepoint. Over 90 per cent of soybean meal arrives by rail, and ships reach Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Progreso and Manzanillo from both oceans.[4] Some switching is already happening. Brazil's share of Mexican chicken imports rose from zero in 2013 to 24 per cent in 2025, while the US share fell from 98 to 73 per cent. The US share of soybean imports fell from about 85 per cent in 2020-22 to 75 per cent in 2023-25. In January 2026, Mexico opened import quotas of 51,000 tonnes of pork and 70,000 tonnes of beef to countries without trade deals.[2, 3, 4]
Upstream dependence:
Farm inputs are Mexico's weakest point. Feed, fertiliser, breeding stock and energy all cross the same border. Mexico grows about 6 per cent of the oilseeds it uses, and soybean meal makes up roughly 80 per cent of the protein meal in its animal feed.[4] It imports around 70 per cent of its fertiliser. PEMEX supplies a little over 30 per cent, from output of 975,000 tonnes in 2025.[26] Urea and DAP make up about 35 per cent of the cost of growing maize, so a fertiliser shock hits even the maize Mexico still grows itself.[1] Poultry, pig and dairy breeding stock is imported, and gains in milk yield are credited to imported dairy genetics.[5]
Mexico's oilseed crushers can handle 11.5 million tonnes a year but run at only about 60 per cent of capacity.[4] That spare capacity is of limited use, because most of the beans it would crush are imported, though crushers can switch between American and Brazilian beans. More fertiliser is on the way. PEMEX output rose 21 per cent in 2025, and work began that year on a MX$25 billion ammonia and urea plant at Poza Rica designed to make 708,000 tonnes of urea a year.[26]
Access and affordability:
On national averages, most Mexicans can afford food. The share fell from 32.6 per cent in 2020 to 20.1 per cent in 2024, and was 2.7 per cent in 2023, down from 3.6 per cent in 2018.[34, 35]
The averages hide unequal access. affected 12.5 per cent of under-fives in 2022, and 34 per cent of people lacked secure access to food that year, 6.4 per cent severely. Hardship is concentrated in rural areas and in the Indigenous south.[19, 36] Food inflation fell from 14.55 per cent in September 2022 to 1.66 per cent in June 2026.[37]
The government caps prices on a basic basket of foods, including tortillas, until 31 December 2026.[2] During the 2007/08 world price spike, Mexican maize prices did not follow world prices in the short term.[47]
Food prices have not followed world prices back down. Mexico's food price index rose about 28.6 per cent between March 2022 and March 2026, while the FAO index fell 19.7 per cent.[49, 50] Wholesale black beans in Mexico City varied by 83 per cent during 2025, then fell to MXN 17 a kilogram by August 2026.[51] At the 2026 minimum wage of MXN 315.04 a day, a kilogram at that wholesale price costs 0.43 hours of work; shop prices are higher.[52, 51]
Shock endurance:
In a shock, Mexico relies on switching foods and buying abroad rather than on stocks. Stocks are thin. Maize stocks of 5.8 million tonnes against 51.5 million tonnes of use last about 41 days, and wheat stocks of 345,000 tonnes against 8.0 million tonnes about 16 days. Feed mills hold roughly 20 days of maize, delivered by rail just in time, and the government holds no dairy stocks.[1, 5] A national grain reserve worth MX$100 billion was agreed on 17 December 2025, but its size, locations and purchase prices are not yet set.[23]
Mexico has real strengths too. It earns dollars from food, selling USD 42.6 billion of farm goods to the United States in 2025, and with GDP per head of USD 13,988 it can outbid many buyers on world markets.[18, 20] Its government also acts fast: it extended the price caps and opened new import quotas within a single week in January 2026.[2]
Its ability to pay for imports in a crisis is mixed. Foreign exchange reserves covered 3.75 months of imports in 2025, down from 5.08 months in 2020.[38] Its stronger asset is a Flexible Credit Line with the IMF, one of very few in the world. The facility, renewed on 13 November 2025 at about USD 24 billion, down from USD 35 billion, can be drawn without conditions in a crisis.[39] Social protection reaches 40.6 per cent of the population, but it did not expand much in the last major shock: Mexico's 2020 pandemic spending was among the lowest in the world as a share of GDP.[40, 41]
Mexico has adapted under pressure. When the United States closed its border to Mexican live cattle, exports fell from a record 1.25 million head in 2024 to 230,000 in 2025 and to none in 2026. Mexico sent over a million of those animals to its own feedlots, and beef output and consumption are both forecast to rise 6 per cent as a result.[2, 22] When beef prices rose 16.7 per cent in a year, shoppers and processors moved to pork and chicken within months.[3] But hardship is widespread. With a third of people food insecure, price rises quickly leave people hungry.[19] Protein supply is 100.3 grams per person per day, over two-fifths more than people need.
Trajectory
The government's stated aim is food sovereignty, but production and imports are moving the other way. Cosechando Soberanía committed MX$53,971 million in 2025, rising to MX$83,760 million by 2030 and reaching 750,000 farmers, with credit at 9 per cent and free crop insurance.[29] Beans have reached their target,[24] and the milk plan aims for 15 billion litres by 2030, against about 13.3 billion in 2023.[25] Yet maize output is forecast to fall 3 per cent to 24.5 million tonnes in while maize imports rise to a record 26.8 million tonnes.[1] The programmes are limited to farms of 5 to 20 hectares, and USDA judges their effect on national output to be small.[1]
A strategic grain reserve would let the government release food when imports or harvests fall short. Finishing the new fertiliser plants matters nearly as much, to cut the costs that hold down yields. Finding new feed suppliers lags behind both: the shift to Brazil seen in chicken, pork and soybeans has not yet happened for maize or soybean meal.
USMCA now faces review every year rather than a fifteen-year horizon, and it expires in 2036 unless all three countries renew it.[20, 21] Mexico's protein system is fast, cheap and efficient because it treats US farms almost as part of its own. With the agreement under yearly review and feed mills holding about twenty days of grain, that reliance now carries more risk.