HomeNewsBriefSmall Farmers Hurting in Mexico’s Poppy Growing Heartland
BRIEF

Small Farmers Hurting in Mexico’s Poppy Growing Heartland

HEROIN / 24 JUN 2019 BY PARKER ASMANN EN

Tension is brewing among small farmers in a notorious poppy-growing region in Mexico over delivery delays of a government subsidized fertilizer, in just the latest issue facing farmers amid a growing shift away from heroin and towards synthetic drugs.

For 24 years, municipal and state authorities in southwest Guerrero state along Mexico’s Pacific coast have provided subsidized fertilizer to help local farmers grow corn. But these government subsidies have also been helping another group of farmers: poppy growers.

However, just 58 of the 132 fertilizer distribution centers in Guerrero -- long Mexico’s heartland for growing poppy, the raw ingredient needed to make heroin -- are in operation at the moment, according to Jorge Gage Francois, the state program’s director, Proceso reported.

SEE ALSO: Mexico News and Profiles

The problem, according to Gage Francois, is that some 400,000 farmers have registered to be a part of the program, 30,000 more than last year, which has caused delays in verifying each farmer’s operations. Roadblocks and the detention of public officials have also slowed the process of delivering fertilizer to registered farmers, according to Gage Francois.

Authorities have had suspicions for some time that the government subsidized fertilizer wasn’t only being used for growing corn. In August 2017, for example, federal security forces discovered one and a half tons of fertilizer on a poppy growing camp in Guerrero where nine growing fields had been destroyed.

InSight Crime Analysis

Delays in receiving government subsidized fertilizer are just the latest headache for farmers in Mexico’s poppy heartland, who have been hit extremely hard by a drop in heroin prices due to a rise in production and demand for synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and the deadly opioid fentanyl.

In 2017, “the value of the opium crop … outstripped the entire value of agricultural output in 26 of Mexico’s 32 states,” according to a 2019 study by the Network of Researchers in International Affairs (Noria).

Indeed, Mexico’s opium crop was valued at some 19 billion pesos (around $1 billion), significantly more than the value of beans ($846 million), wheat ($687 million) and cotton ($636 million) at that time, according to the study.

In 2018, however, the study estimated that poppy growers made between just five billion and seven billion pesos (between $261 million and $364 million), a more than 60 percent drop from 2017 that underscores the “radical decrease” in the value of the crop over that one-year span as criminal groups have adapted to meet drug market shifts.

SEE ALSO: Mexico’s Role in the Deadly Rise of Fentanyl

To be sure, several farmers just north of Guerrero in Sinaloa state -- another historic hub for drug production in Mexico -- recently told Ozy that the price for a kilogram of opium paste had fallen from $1,840 to just $500, backing up what Noria’s researchers found.

As the market demands have shifted, so have Mexico’s criminal groups. Just last year, for example, security forces in Sinaloa seized 50 metric tons of methamphetamine in what was believed to be the largest such bust in the country’s history. And as InSight Crime detailed in a 2019 investigation into Mexico’s role in the fentanyl trade, the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) -- the country’s two most formidable crime groups -- are “the most important Mexican purveyors of the drug and its precursors.”

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

JALISCO CARTEL / 9 MAY 2022

Mexico City authorities have sustained a two-year crackdown on the city’s largest gang, La Unión Tepito, arresting hundreds and freezing…

DISPLACEMENT / 2 JUN 2021

The number of displaced people within Mexico has increased for the first time in three years, indicating that the country's…

COCA / 16 DEC 2022

Coca cultivation in Guerrero, Mexico, has grown ten times in a year. But Mexico remains far from achieving mass coca…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report continues to be a reference in the region

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Paraguay Election Coverage Draws Attention 

5 MAY 2023

InSight Crime looked at the various anti-organized crime policies proposed by the candidates in Paraguay’s presidential election, which was won on April 30 by Santiago Peña. Our pre-election coverage was cited…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in OAS, CARICOM Reports

28 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s work was cited nine times in a new report by the Organization of American States (OAS) titled “The Impact of Organized Crime on Women,…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Staff Cited as Experts by International Media

21 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime deputy editor, Juan Diego Posada, was interviewed by the Associated Press about connections between the ex-FARC mafia and Brazilian criminal groups, and…