Flour Mills Pay $4 or $5 per Kilo for Corn & Sell Tortillas for $27

ByJuan Carlos G. Partida

This article by Juan Carlos G. Partida originally appeared in the November 25, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Guadalajara, Jalisco. ” We get paid four to five pesos per kilo of corn, while tortillas are worth between 25 and 30 pesos,” says Salvador Ruiz, a farmer from Jalisco.

To make matters worse, he points out, one kilo of corn yields only one kilo and 600 grams of tortillas. “It’s not fair!” he shouts, showing his hands to Alfredo Porras Domínguez, the Jalisco delegate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER). “We’re all worn out from working so hard, while you support businessmen who earn billions!”

The setting is the Sader delegation in Tlaquepaque, where members of the Amigos por el Campo group called a press conference, while other groups carried out blockades at at least five highway points in the state, in which, they clarified, their organization decided not to participate, for now.

“It’s sad to come to these meetings hoping to get a good impression of our government, but there’s no response from the federal administration. It’s like they say, ‘the atole that isn’t stirred gets all lumpy’ (…) They say yes, but then we get to a point where we don’t even cover the costs of what we invest in our crops,” the farmer complains.

Ruiz lists everything needed to make the phrase “without corn there is no country” true: machinery, planting, scalding, cultivating, fertilizing, fumigating, and paying “very expensive laborers.”

As on other occasions, Porras listens and takes notes. Nothing new under a scenario in which the Federation provides support, but only to those who cultivate up to five hectares, which those with more land consider unfair, and that is why they have intensified their protests.

“We’re not asking anything of the federal government, but we do want them to demand that the flour companies pay us a better price. It’s an injustice they’re doing to the entire nation,” he warned.