Mexico doubles imports of fertilizers in value

Mexico doubled its imports of fertilizers in terms of value in the first quarter of 2022, to 411 million dollars, according to data from the Banco de México.

For every 100 pesos of agricultural production in Mexico, 13.20 pesos of spending on fertilizer are required.

Fertilizer imports in the first two months of the current year grew 103% year-on-year.

In all of 2021, these external purchases totaled 2,024 million dollars, which represented an increase of 39.5% compared to 2020 and 45% compared to 2019.

In general, the agricultural sector of Mexico represented 3.8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during 2021, of which, agricultural activities represented 66 percent.

According to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), agricultural exports were 4.0% of total Mexican exports, where Mexico imports 56.7% of the fertilizer it uses.

Fertilizer imports increased by 21.1% between 2018 and 2021, which makes Mexico dependent on this important resource, a situation that is aggravated in the current context given that 25.1% of fertilizer imports come from Russia.

Fertilizers

In order to maintain food security and reduce the impact that variations in the price of fertilizers have on the final price of food, the Fertilizers for Well-Being Program benefited 8,348 producers in the states of Guerrero, Morelos, and Puebla in 2021. and Tlaxcala.

The agricultural production of these states represented an average of 4.4% of their GDP in 2020 and, by 2022, the program will serve strategic attention areas in the states of Chiapas, Guerrero, Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.

The impact on energy prices affected the production chain of other raw materials such as basic metals and fertilizers, which require large amounts of energy for smelting and processing, respectively.

Mexican imports of fertilizers originating in Russia totaled 503 million dollars in 2021, which represented an increase of 44.2% year-on-year and a historical maximum.

Thus, the Russian supply of fertilizers to the Mexican market reached 24% of the total of those imports from all over the world.

Russia is the largest exporter of fertilizers on the planet, with sales of more than 7,000 million dollars annually.