Judging by recent berry exports to China, Dubai, Kuwait and other markets hungry for Mexican-grown fruits, Jalisco is more than pulling its weight in lessening Mexico’s dependence on exports to the United States.
For the first time, blueberries (grown by the firm Berries Paradise in the agricultural zones of Tuxpan and San Isidro and Mazatepec) are being sent to China, 420 boxes to be specific. Such was the apparent significance of this event that it called for a ceremonial sending-off in front of the fruit-laden cargo plane, complete with a podium behind which Jalisco governor Jorge Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz and Hector Padilla Gutierrez, director for the state’s Department of Rural Development, held forth, boasting of their state’s agricultural virility.
“The year 2012 closed with 500 hectares of berries from around Jalisco, concentrated mainly in Jocotepec. By 2016, that number grew to 8,648 hectares, an impressive increase which gave us 107,000 tons of product,” informed Gutierrez.
Blueberries weren’t first out of the gate, however. In January 2015, the first shipment of raspberries was sent to China; June 2016 saw the first strawberry and raspberry exports to Dubai and Kuwait and the first blackberry and raspberry exports to Singapore.
However, agricultural exports, while clearly constituting a sizeable share of Mexico’s export power, are in third place, behind transportation materials (second place) and electronics (first place).
The opening of new, receptive markets to Mexican exports is highly advantageous; over-dependence on one market is economically risky, especially where it concerns the fickle nature of American consumers. A decreased reliance on American markets at a time of cooling relations between Mexico and the Trump Administration may be serendipitous or it may be the result of a purposeful policy shift. Either deliberate or random, for Mexico, this economic trend couldn’t come at a better time.