เขตการค้าเสรีสำหรับถั่วแห้งใน NAFTA

Dry beans are one of the commodities with a 15-year transition in NAFTA implementation even though they account for less than 1 เปอร์เซ็นต์ของสหรัฐฯ. harvested crop acres and about 110,000 metric tons of yearly exports to Mexico. As with white corn, dry beans have been a traditional staple of the Mexican diet and are facing lower demand as diets become more diversified. Mexican production is about 1.2 ล้านเมตริกตัน (MMT) per year by 300,000 farmers on 4 ล้านเอเคอร์. NAFTA has smoothed out shipments year to year, แต่สหรัฐฯ. exports to Mexico are only 7 ร้อยละของตลาด.

สำหรับ 2007 สหรัฐอเมริกา. tariff rate quota (TRQ) for dry bean exports to Mexico is 73,427 MT with an over quota tariff of 11.8 เปอร์เซ็นต์, ลดลงจาก 127.8 percent at the beginning of NAFTA in 1994. Canada has a much smaller TRQ of 2,000 มอนแทนา, but has been increasing production sharply and will be a larger competitor in 2008. Per capita use of dry beans in Mexico has declined by 13 percent from an annual average of 32 ปอนด์ใน 1990-94 ถึง 28 ปอนด์ใน 2002-06, still one of the highest in the world. The government hopes to increase per capita consumption by 13 ร้อยละ 2012, but that is not consistent with moving away from traditional diets as incomes rise.

ตามที่สหรัฐฯ. agricultural attaché in Mexico, dry beans are one of four commodities (ข้าวโพด, sugar and milk are the other three) the Mexican government has focused on to increase competitiveness by 2012. The goal is to increase dry land yields from 460 pounds per acre today to 650-800 ปอนด์ต่อเอเคอร์ใน 2012. For irrigated land the goal is 1,600-2,000 pounds per acre compared to 1,350 pounds now. เกิน 80 percent of the land used for dry bean production is non-irrigated. The average yield in the U.S. for irrigated and non-irrigated is 1,700 ปอนด์. The programs to increase yields sound familiar like strengthening institutions that work with farmers and increasing competitive supplies of inputs, credit and risk management. Mexico has a wide range of growers with most using traditional farming methods, while other use hybrid seeds, automated irrigation systems and advanced agronomic practices. The government is also encouraging less productive land to move from dry beans to grains and grasses.

Mexico has income safety net programs for dry bean farmers. As with corn farmers, dry bean producers receive about $35 per acre as a fixed payment, with small producers with 2.5 ถึง 12.5 acres receiving $42 ต่อเอเคอร์. In major dry bean growing areas the government has a minimum price of $0.22 per pound for 113,000 มอนแทนา (เกี่ยวกับ 17 percent of the crop in the major growing areas) delivered to local warehouses. That is roughly $0.05 per pound less than the average market price for all dry beans in the U.S. ในเดือนพฤศจิกายน 2007.

Dry beans in the U.S. ใน 2007 were harvested on 1.48 ล้านเอเคอร์; ลงประมาณ 4 คิดเป็นร้อยละ 2006 และต่ำสุดนับตั้งแต่ 1.22 million acres were harvested in 2004 และ 1.25 ล้านเอเคอร์ใน 2001. Acreage was up 3 percent in North Dakota and 4 percent in Minnesota. North Dakota at 665,000 acres had 45 percent of the dry bean acres in the U.S., followed by Michigan at 195,000 เอเคอร์, Minnesota at 145,000 acres and Nebraska at 107,000 เอเคอร์. Total production in 2007 for all the classes of dry beans is estimated at 25.2 million hundredweights with North Dakota the leader at 10.6 million hundredweights, followed by Michigan at 3.0 ล้าน, Minnesota at 2.6 million and Nebraska at 2.4 million hundredweights.

Mexico is the largest market for U.S. dry beans taking 31 เปอร์เซ็นต์ของสหรัฐฯ. exports in the past two marketing years. รวมสหรัฐฯ. การส่งออกเป็น 6.98 million hundredweights in the 2006/07 September-August marketing year with Mexico taking 2.16 million hundredweights. Canada and the United Kingdom were the second and third largest markets at 0.69 million hundredweights and 0.62 million hundredweights respectively. According to the October 2007 Vegetable and Melon Outlook from the Economic Research Service (ERS) ของ USDA, “Black beans and pinto beans accounted for more than three-fourths of all U.S. dry beans shipped to Mexico in 2006/07. สหรัฐฯ. dry bean export value to Mexico remained virtually even with a year earlier at $62 ล้าน, with black beans accounting for about $30 ล้านบาทใน 2006/07. The average export value per pound for all U.S. dry beans shipped to Mexico was 28.9 cents, ขึ้น 9 percent from a year earlier.”

North Dakota accounted for 65 เปอร์เซ็นต์ของสหรัฐฯ. pinto bean production in 2007, up from a three year average of 50 เปอร์เซ็นต์, และคิดเป็น 72 percent of the state’s total dry bean production. Michigan produced 56 percent of the black beans in the U.S. followed by North Dakota at 23 percent and Minnesota at 14 เปอร์เซ็นต์. Half of Michigan’s total dry bean production is accounted for by black beans.

The ERS is anticipating that U.S. dry bean acreage may be down another 4 ร้อยละ 2008 because of competition from other crops, with production down 5 percent as yields are closer to average. That should help maintain the current balance of supply and demand in the NAFTA markets. สหรัฐอเมริกา. also imports dry beans from Canada and Mexico.

Mexico is taking the correct approach of encouraging efficiencies in its dry bean industry to adapt to the open market. Trade agreements often force governments to encourage changes in production that would be good without trade agreements, but are politically unachievable without the economic pressures of competition from producers in other countries. Dry bean trade among the three NAFTA countries will have turbulence due to the economic conditions among limited resource farmers in Mexico, increasing production in Canada and the potential for larger supplies in the U.S. from slight shifts in U.S. acreage. The ending of the NAFTA transition has come at a time of strong market prices which should ease the market adjustments.