Zacatecas Bean Farmers Protest Non-Operational Collection Centers

ByAlfredo Valadez Rodríguez

This article by Alfredo Valadez Rodríguez originally appeared in the January 13, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Zacatecas, Zacatecas. Farmers from rural villages in the municipality of Villa de Cos staged a protest at the headquarters of the Food for Well-being agency (formerly SEGALMEX), demanding a new demonstration against the non-operational bean collection centers, which have yet to receive the harvests from the past seasonal agricultural cycle, despite assurances by Governor David Monreal Ávila (MORENA, brother of Ricardo Monreal) at the end of December that the 53 official warehouses in the state were already operational.

Bean farmers in Zacatecas – who produced some 400,000 tons of this legume in the recent fall harvest – have been protesting for the past three months against the “bureaucracy and incompetence” of local and federal authorities in setting up official collection centers.

In these places, farmers are guaranteed the guaranteed price of 27 pesos per kilogram, set by the federal government, compared to the 7 to 12 pesos per kilo that intermediaries or coyotes pay them.

Desperate for money to collect and sell their harvests—in order to pay off debts carried over from last year and recoup some of their investment—farmers protested in front of the Food for Well-being headquarters, located on the west side of the state capital. Using their trucks and trailers, they blocked the side lanes of the extended highway leading out of town toward Fresnillo, forcing agency officials to meet with them.

Farmers are supposed to be guaranteed a price of 27 pesos per kilogram from the federal government, compared to the 7 to 12 pesos per kilo that intermediaries or coyotes pay them. But the collection centers aren’t operating.

“We are here desperate, because they haven’t even given us sacks,” Juan Carlos Sifuentes, one of the farmers, shouted, referring to the labeled sacks that are only distributed by the government, and are a mandatory requirement to deliver the beans to the official warehouses.

Ángel Olais, director of Food for Well-being, came to talk with the protesters and explained that although there is a large warehouse there, the beans could not be stored there, as it is occupied by a significant volume of fertilizers, “and we cannot put beans for human consumption in a place where there are fertilizers.”