Mexican Rail Crossing Closures Delivering Significant Blow to U.S. Agriculture

A coalition of nearly 50 ag groups are turning up the heat on the Biden administration regarding the Mexican rail crossing closures. They say every day the border is closed to commerce, U.S. farmers are losing millions of dollars due to Mexico being the top customer for many U.S. ag products.

USDA reports 64%, or 15.6 million metrics tons, of grain and oilseed exports move to Mexico via rail annually. And nearly a third of all grain goes through the corridors in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas.

"Mexico is our No. 1 or No. 2 market for virtually every type of grain," says Max Fisher, chief economist for the National Grain and Feed Association. "For corn, it's by far and away the largest market. For soybeans, No. 2, only behind China. It's the No. 1 market for wheat."  

For wheat alone, it's estimated more than 13 million bushels, worth $114 million, move through those two Mexican crossings per year, and nearly 70% of total U.S. wheat exports move via rail to Mexico.

"It's somewhere between about 3.5 and 4 million tons a year to our number one customer. In bushels, that's just shy of 150 million bushels," says Vince Peterson, president and CEO of U.S. Wheat Associates. "To put it in perspective, Mexico is our No. 1 market for hard red winter wheat. It's our No. 1 market for soft red winter wheat, and last year it was the No. 2 market for spring wheat."

In 2022, nearly $4.2 billion of U.S. soybeans and products were also exported to Mexico with the vast majority going by rail. During this current marketing year, Mexico has been by far the largest buyer of U.S. corn - accounting for 47% of sales this year.

The coalition says time is running out as Mexican livestock and poultry producers could run out of feed as early as this weekend and then will shift to other international suppliers. This will hurt basis levels and prices for all U.S. grain and oilseed producers.

"We're urging the administration to deal with this as quickly as possible. One thing, they have a humanitarian problem that we do on the border, but now this falls over into commerce," Peterson says.

Fisher adds, "CBP is an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, which of course the Department of Homeland Security is underneath President Biden. So, we're going to all levels."

In a sharply worded letter to U.S. Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the growers – representing corn, milk, rice and soybean producers, among others – said the crossings could be easily reopened.

“Each day the crossings are closed, we estimate almost 1 million bushels of grain exports are potentially lost along with export potential for many other agricultural products,” the groups wrote, adding that blocking food heading to Mexico could lead to inflation or food insecurity there.