agriculture

Price of corn goes up

BLOOMBERG

Maize: Growers expect to start harvesting in early January and to get a better price for their product in 2008. 959480

Weather permitting, the maize harvest will start soon in Panama, during the first days of January. Farmers are happy because their yields per hectare have risen, but buyers are not looking forward to paying more for corn.

Last Wednesday the association of maize producers in the province of Los Santos recorded an increase of $6.5 per ton for the local commodity. That represents and increase of 56.5 percent over prices for the 2007 harvest.

In a letter sent to the minister of agricultural development, Guillermo Salazar, producers announced that during the harvest months of January to April, a ton of maize from the La Honda silos in the provice of Los Santos, with a moisture content of 14.5 percent, will cost $17, while a ton of the same crop will cost $18 in Panama province.

This year a ton of Panamanian maize was quoted at between $11.50 and $12 during the first four months and at $17.50 in the month of December. Imported maize is selling for between $11 and $14.

Luis Carlos Castroverde, president of the Asociación Nacional de Avicultores de Panamá (Anavip), said that free market laws exist in Panama, "so one wouldn’t want to think that any specific sector is fixing prices."

Producers have the freedom to get the best dollar for their harvest, Castroverde said, but added that "setting this kind of price is a delicate matter."

Valentín Dominguez, president of the Asociación de Productores de Maíz de Los Santos, said the increase was due to a rise in production costs.

"Just as the price of rice went up, maize is experiencing adjustments because the cost of producing it has gone up," he said.

The agricultural director of the Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario (Mida), Maximino Díaz, affirmed that this year 14, 412 hectares of maize were planted, or 4,000 more than in 2006.

Among the reasons for the increase in hectares planted are the expectation that prices will rise and that demand will grow for the production of maize-based food products, Díaz explained.

Producing a hectare of maize costs around 1,100 dollars the first year and $800 in the following years.

Yields of 105 tons per hectare are expected for the next harvest, according to technician from Mida.

The 2007 harvest yielded 92 tons per hectare, according to the organization.

National consumption of maize is 7 million tons a year. The 2008 harvest will yield 1,564,500 tons, so as in every other year, grain will have to be imported to meet demand, Diaz said.

The change in the price of maize will affect all products whose primary ingredient is corn, such as tortillas and chicken feed.