Potatoes and Mexico

I called Frank Muir who is the Executive Director of the Idaho Potato Commission and I asked him how our trade relations are with Mexico in view of the fact that Mexico is being accused of dumping sugar into our markets. “Right now we are in a very important stage in our relationships with Mexico. We are importing and exporting potatoes back and forth and we are actually at a major milestone where the two countries have agreed in principle to start shipping potatoes back and forth beyond the 26 km area which has been in place for more than 10 years. This is a very important phase to us. There are some stipulations in terms of the size of bags, the size of cities that the potatoes can be shipped into and just some other requirements that we are fully supportive of. There are still some outstanding issues being worked out right now between the two countries but we expect in the next couple of days that US potatoes will begin shipping to the larger cities in Mexico. We look forward to a long-term positive relationship with Mexico helping not just to sell US potatoes into Mexico but to help increase overall demand by Mexico for our potatoes.