Contact: Ryan Moore

Background

Trade has been the origin of the long and fruitful relationship between the U.S, Canada, and Mexican Governments under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Mexico imports more than 7 billion dollars per year in agricultural products from North American countries, mostly animal products, grains, forages, oleaginous and their products. Regarding Mexican agricultural exports to Canada and United States, this commercial flow exceeds 5 billion dollars per year. The main exports are produce, beverages and fruit juices, fresh fruits, coffee and their products.

This unique condition makes this partnership the most advanced and largest trading economies in the world where agriculture and agribusiness are very important to the economies of these countries.

The NAFTA region has over 1.1 billion acres of farmland with over 6.6 million farms. This group of countries is the largest food exporter in the world and the largest food importer in the Western hemisphere.

These countries are natural commercial partners, and they share many common problems in agriculture. Some of these problems are related to food safety, control of pests and diseases, sustainable agriculture, natural resources conservation, and others related to trade and food exports and imports.

Most of all these problems require common technical-scientific solutions, and this shows the importance of carrying out collaborative activities in agricultural research and exchange of information between the three countries, to take advantage of the technological and scientific achievements and development.