MEXICO CITY |
Fri Nov 25,[masked]:55pm EST
(Reuters) -
Mexico
is being battered its worst drought in seven decades, which has
devastated farm life and is expected to continue into next year.
The lack of rainfall has
affected almost 70 percent of the country and northern states like
Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas have
suffered the most acute water shortage.
Due
to the drought and a cold snap at the start of the year, the government
has cut its forecast for corn production two times in 2011. It now
expects a harvest of 20 million tonnes compared to a previous estimate
of 23 million.
Crops that cover
tens of thousands of acres have been lost this year and roughly 450,000
cattle have died in arid pastures. Crucial dams, typically full at this
time of year, are at 30 to 40 percent of capacity.
"This
is very serious," Ignacio Rivera, an official at the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development, told Reuters. "Statistics on
precipitation in the country show us that this year has been the driest
in the last 70 years."
The country
has total arable land of 22 million hectares (54.4 million acres) that
can be tilled over two planting seasons while the national cattle herd
last year was just over 32.6 million.
Mexico
is one of the world's five top corn producers and the government
expects output to recover to 25 million tonnes in 2012, aided by
reorganization of the cultivated areas.
Rivera
said that of the 8.1 million hectares of farmland insured by the
government against natural disaster, some 600,000 claims have been
lodged to recover losses on 3.8 million hectares. The Mexican government
has so far set aside some 1.6 billion pesos ($113 million) to cover the
losses.
TROUBLING PICTURE
Forecasts do not signal any near-term relief, but rather more losses ahead as the winter season brings damaging frost.
"It's
a troubling situation, and is more worrisome because the rainy season
is over... the hope is that by June it starts to rain," said Felipe
Arreguin, deputy director of the National Water Commission (Conagua).
In
the northern state of Durango, where a third of the population lives in
the countryside, authorities expect significant losses in grain and
seed production as well as bean and corn, which are a staple in the
Mexican diet.
"It's a tragedy
because there is virtually no harvest. It's a critical situation that we
don't even have beans for home consumption," the state governor Jorge
Herrera told Reuters.
Official
figures show an expected 28 percent loss in production of beans this
year, while the recovery to historical levels of 1.2 million tonnes will
depend on the weather.
If the
drought does not lift soon, analysts say authorities will be forced to
raise its food imports to cover lower domestic production.