Mexico City - Mexico's local production of chicken is expected to rise 5.0% in 1998, compared to the total output in 1997, an agricultural group said.
The National Union of Poultry Farming (UNA) also said if a prolonged drought continued in Mexico's northern corn growing region for another 15 to 17 days it would have severe consequences for the country's 1998 spring-summer corn crop.
This could lead to another jump in Mexican imports of yellow corn for feed grains for the chicken industry this year, which already import between 20 and 25% of the corn needed for the livestock production.
Mexico expects to have an increase of 5.0% in the chicken production compared to last yea said Florentino Alonso Hidalgo, president of the independent industry- run UNA.
Total chicken production in 1998 is expected to reach 1.57 million tonnes, compared to the 1.49 million tonnes produced in 1997, according to UNA statistics released to reporters attending a news conference.
Alonso said the chicken production on average consume some 9.0 million tonnes of yellow corn, of which some 2.0 million tonnes in a normal crop year will be imported.
But this year the Ministry of Agriculture has said it expects to import an additional 1.5 to 2.0 million tonnes of corn due to crop damage suffered by the severe drought, said to be the worst in Mexico in more than 70 years.
“The problem is the drought. If it doesn't rain within the next 15 to 17 days we'll have big problems with the corn production throughout Mexico,” said Alonso.
“For the chicken production exclusively we need an additional 1.5 to 2.0 million tonnes of corn imports this year, which is due a combination of the increased production and the drought. But it could be more if there is no rain,” he said.
He said UNA would continue to closely follow the situation in the next two weeks, and then would evaluate the overall crop situation depending on whether in particular dry, northern areas had received rains.
“In all my life and from what I know in the history of Mexico, I have never seen so serious a drought,” said Alonso.
Most of Mexico's yellow corn imports are from the United States. Total grains and oilseeds imports have been estimated to reach about 15 million tonnes in 1998, sharply up by about 3.5 million tonnes from 1997 imports due to the drought.
Mexico's National Corn Producers Union last month told Reuters that as much as 25% of the spring-summer corn crop might have been lost because of the drought.
The union's president Abel Castellanos said central growing states of Hidalgo, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Mexico state accounted for a third of the crop, which the government had estimated at 14.7 million tonnes for the cycle.
Besides being used as a feed grain corn is a key food staple in Mexico's corn flour-based tortilla industry.
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