Corn Producers Maintain 12 Blockades in 5 States

ByMexico Solidarity

This article by Ernesto Martínez, Rubicela Morelos, Irene Sánchez, Carlos García and La Jornada Hidalgo was originally published in the October 31, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Editor’s note: For background on the demands in Mexico’s national farmers strike and the conditions of domestic agriculture, we recommend reading Ana de Ita’s editorial Basic Grains at the Crossroads and Arturo Huerta González’ article Agricultural Producers Call for Removing Basic Grains from USMCA, Building Food Sovereignty.

Corn producers from Morelos, Sinaloa, Hidalgo, Michoacán and Guanajuato maintained 12 blockades on highway sections and toll booths across the country yesterday, reported the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation.

This is despite the federal government’s commitment to provide farmers with support of 950 pesos per ton of grain.

The farmers of Morelos stated that they will continue their protest because the agreement was only made with representatives from Jalisco, Michoacán and Guanajuato, and they also consider the offer insufficient.

Farmers in Hidalgo continued their blockade of the Arco Norte highway yesterday, near the Tula tollbooth, demanding a better price per ton of corn from the federal government. Photo: Tlahuelilpan Informa

In this state, the protesters have been stationed on the Siglo XXI highway for four days, and yesterday they set up camp around the town of Amilcingo, in the municipality of Temoac.

In Guanajuato, only one closure (out of the 39 that existed on Monday) remained yesterday on a section of the federal highway 45D; at this point, farmers are demanding a guaranteed price of 6,000 pesos for sorghum.

In Sinaloa, producers from the Carrizo Valley, who had freed the Cuatro Caminos tollbooth in Guasave on October 27, decided to escalate their protest yesterday with a 72-hour partial blockade. This blockade involves denying passage to cargo trucks and only allowing access to passenger buses, private cars, and ambulances, resulting in long lines of vehicles.

Baltazar Valdez Armentía, president of Campesinos Unidos, explained that other groups remained for the fourth consecutive day at the toll booths of San Miguel, El Pizal and Costa Rica, and allowed free passage.

Baltazar Hernández, president of the Union of Agricultural Producers of the Carrizo Valley, stressed that among their demands is that they be paid the 480 million pesos for the wheat harvest of the 2024-2025 agricultural cycle season.

In Hidalgo, farmers from irrigation district 03 continued yesterday with the blockade they began on Wednesday on the Arco Norte highway, to demand a guaranteed price of 7,200 pesos per ton of corn; a closure was also reported at kilometer 194+500.

Meanwhile, in Michoacán, although state authorities announced in the morning that traffic had been reopened on all roads, in the afternoon farmers again took over the toll booths of Panindícuaro, Zinapécuaro and Ecuandureo, on the Occidente México-Guadalajara highway, where they allowed passage without charging.