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April 25, 2002
The state of Tamaulipas has initiated a program to permanently alter sorghum cultivation practices and production.With the financial backing of the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Foodstuffs (SAGAPA), Tamaulipas is attempting to alleviate an exploding soil erosion problem by converting 100,000 hectares, traditionally dedicated to sorghum--the state’s major revenue producing grain--into rangeland during the 2002/03 crop cycle. The goal is to convert a total of at least 300,000 hectares of sorghum over to rangeland within the next three years to offset what is estimated to be 263,000 hectares presently designated as eroded. Tamaulipas state officials say that from 1995/96 to 2000/01, Tamaulipas averaged 854,503 hectares planted to sorghum, resulting in production of 1,787,058 tons, a yield of 2.33 tons per hectare. Using USDAs annual sorghum totals for Mexico, the state of Tamaulipas therefore accounted for an average of 29 percent of Mexico's national sorghum production for the period 1995/96 to 2000/01, and 80 percent of the national fall/winter total.
NOTE: Mexican agricultural accounting methods differ from those of FAS in terms how a crop year is defined. Click here to see USDA estimates.
This shift in direction of Tamaulipas' agribusiness is even more profound than the shift that precipitated it 23 years ago. Then, a state governor proposed that several thousand hectares of rangeland be planted to sorghum during the fall/winter cycle. That proposal made sorghum Tamaulipas' leading agricultural activity. In 2001/02, sorghum cultivation involved over 106,150 ranches/farms, and 1,390,100 planted hectares under Mexico's direct support program called PROCAMPO. Sorghum production has taken its toll on the state in terms of soil conservation, and the effects of wind erosion are the subject of much public discussion. Of the 789,799 hectares Tamaulipas officials say were planted to sorghum in 2001/02 only 77,797 hectares was irrigated, and 35,000 of those irrigated hectares now have serious salinity problems. Another 40,000 hectares apparently went unplanted because of poor soil moisture at planting time. Declining profitability has also encouraged smaller producers to rent their land to others, another break from past practices. The sorghum-to-rangeland program calls for producers to leave their fields fallow, or plant a light cover crop, for at least 18 months before allowing animals to graze. PROCAMPO payments are expected to offset lost revenue while converted fields are not producing.
Dryland sorghum, candidates for conversion program;
Another conversion candidate
Topsoil collects around
boundaries over time
More boundaries
Still more boundaries
Six-foot
high wire fence buried in topsoil
Field rendered unproductive by wind erosion
NOTE: All photos displayed in this report were taken April 9, 2002 near the village Raul Muñoz, northwest of the city of Reynosa.
In the face of mounting problems with its leading grain, Tamaulipas has set a course to gradually reduce sorghum production to
stem soil erosion;
reinvigorate a listless livestock industry; and
increase state producers’ share of the national market.
The "back-to-the-range movement" will focus on sheep rather than cattle, with plans to supply meat to buyers from Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacan states. The longer range goal is to be a stronger presence in countries such as New Zealand.
The PROCAMPO program began in the early 1990s as a way for the Mexican federal government to help producers ease into a world market where subsidies are expected to no longer be the norm. Until the end of 2005/06, Mexican producers of barley, corn, cotton, dry beans, rice safflower, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat will receive cash payments to offset their expenses.(?)
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For more information, contact
Ron White of the Production Estimates
and Crop Assessment Division
at (202) 690-0137.
