The mexican tortilla crisis of 2007: The impacts of grain-price increases on food-production chains

Alder Keleman, Hugo García Rañó

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article examines the case of the Mexican 'tortilla crisis' of 2007. Drawing on reviews of literature and the media, key-informant interviews, and secondary databases, the authors explore the response of the Mexican maize - tortilla chain to a price shock. Price increases should theoretically be passed on to the consumer as a progressively less significant percentage of the overall price of value-added food products. However, in Mexico, price increases were magnified along the maize - tortilla production chain. This was due largely to asymmetries among segments of the chain, which conditioned the responses of industrial-scale corporations and small-scale family businesses. This case study suggests that, in order to understand the impacts of price-shocks on poor consumers, more detailed, country-level analyses of market chains and price-ransmission structures are needed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)550-565
Number of pages16
JournalDevelopment in Practice
Volume21
Issue number4-5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Globalisation
  • Labour and livelihoods
  • Latin america and the caribbean

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Development

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