ABSTRACT
161Mexico is a nation in the process of change. It is a newly industrialized country with a growing population, now over 70 million. Until getting caught by the 1981 petroleum price decline and sharply higher interest rates on its large international debt, Mexico represented a real economic success story. GNP per capita had increased 3.8 percent per year from 1960 to 1981, even while population was increasing by more than 3 percent annually.
Now, however, Mexico has become one of the major debtor nations of the world. Servicing its debt is a tremendous burden on the economy. Mexico also confronts a huge foreign trade deficit, domestic recession, and potentially disastrous liquidation of many capital assets.
To resolve its debt crisis, and the recession that crisis has created, Mexico clearly must increase foreign exchange earnings. It must participate more effectively in the world economy. After the debt crisis is resolved, continued foreign trade will be critical to sustain domestic economic development.
Revenues from petroleum reserves are helping. The meat industry represents another opportunity to increase foreign exchange. Mexico in the past has been a major exporter of meat products, and has the potential to expand that industry.
Mexico's economic problems, and measures such as devaluation and price controls to deal with those problems, however, are undermining long-term strength and eroding real potential, especially in the agricultural sector.
The devalued peso makes imported feed grain more expensive. Dairy and swine herds have been cut by 40 percent, as has much of the country's poultry flock.
The potential demand for meat exports, however, is substantial. Domestic consumption of meat and meat products in Mexico historically has been high, and will increase with economic strength and a probable shift of income to lower income groups. To meet these increasing demands for meat products, the Mexican meat industry must find a way to increase production at minimal cost.
This chapter details trends of production, consumption, import and export in Mexico's grain and meat industries. It also explores the valuable role that isolated soy protein can play in increasing output of meat products while saving significant quantities of resource inputs.
