The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Thursday announced an agreement with Mexico’s national service for agri-food health, safety and quality (SENASICA) to allow shipments to Mexico of Canadian potatoes for consumption or processing.

CFIA said it will “work closely with the potato sector in the coming months as next steps are implemented.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Almost 93 per cent of Canada’s fresh potato exports by dollar value in the 2024-25 marketing year were to the U.S. alone.

Canada’s potato exports to Mexico today are almost entirely in frozen potato products. According to Statistics Canada export data for 2024-25, Canada shipped about 55,526 tonnes of frozen potatoes, valued at about C$77.7 million, to Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA/FAS) says Canada that year held about a 34 per cent share of Mexico’s total imports of frozen potatoes, compared to a 52 per cent share for the U.S. and 14 per cent for Belgium.

Meanwhile, citing information from Trade Data Monitor (TDM), FAS says the U.S. has been “Mexico’s sole supplier of fresh potato imports” in recent years. In the 2023-24 marketing year, those imports came in at 204,165 tonnes.

The bulk of Mexico’s potato consumption is supplied by its domestic growers, who produced about 2.12 million tonnes in 2024.

A 2025 FAS report on the Mexican potato market said its consumers favour the domestically-grown Alpha potato variety, and “the dominance of domestically produced potatoes in the Mexican market, accounting for 91 per cent of domestic consumption, limits awareness of other potato options among Mexican households.”

FAS noted Mexico requires any fresh potato imports to be packaged in 20-pound bags or smaller, adding that Mexican consumers prefer to hand-select produce and buy relatively smaller quantities more frequently.

Imported fresh potatoes in Mexico, FAS said, today go primarily instead to “restaurants seeking to offer differentiated premium products to their customers.”

Mexico’s new move to allow Canadian fresh potatoes follows a trade mission last October by Canada’s federal agriculture minister Heath MacDonald, during which the two countries “agreed to enhance regulatory and technical co-operation” under a 2025-2028 action plan.

Those talks continued during another trade mission to Mexico last month, led by Dominic LeBlanc, minister for Canada-U.S. trade, CFIA said Thursday. MacDonald also took part in that mission, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The 2025-2028 action plan called for the two countries to make progress on a sanitary and phytosanitary work plan to improve market access for agricultural products for both countries’ consumers and processors, and on mutual recognition of electronic certification for plant, animal, aquaculture and fishing products.

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“Easing trade barriers is crucial for market expansion, and this new protocol will streamline the export process, diversify Canadian apple exports, and meet the evolving preferences of Mexican consumers,” said Canadian Produce Marketing Association president Ron Lemaire in a federal news release on Tuesday.

The change allows the CFIA to inspect and register cold treatment facilities which eliminates the need for in-person inspections by Mexican officials.

Cold treatment is a phytosanitary process related to control of pests, according to the CFIA’s website.

The CFIA will maintain a list of registered facilities in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Exporters will be required to use these facilities to ship apples to Mexico.

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• Active cases dropped to 492 as of January 7, from 1,145 registered on December 10, the ministry said, overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of states.
• Construction for a factory to breed sterile flies in Chiapas state is 48 per cent complete and is on track to start operating in the first half of this year, the ministry said, when it will produce some 200 million flies per week.
• The flies will be released into the wild, so when sterile males mate with wild females, no offspring are produced and the population collapses over time.
• The screwworm outbreak, which has moved northward through Central America and deep into Mexico, has strained relations with the United States, Mexico’s biggest trading partner.
• The U.S. has kept its border mostly closed to Mexican cattle imports since May.

— Reporting by Raul Cortes

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The CFIA began issuing the electronic certificates on Nov. 3, it said in a news release.

Phytosanitary export certificates are documents that certifies plants or plant products are free from pests, inspected with appropriate procedures and confirm to the phytosanitary requirements of the importing country.

Using electronic certificates instead of paper documents will cut down delivery times and will reduce the risk of fraud, the CFIA said.

Canada and Mexico will explore expanding the tool to other agriculture and agri-food products.

The move comes as part of the Canada-Mexico Action Plan announced in September, which would see the two countries cooperate on trade and regulatory issues.

Benefits of ‘ePhyto’

Many countries rely on paper phytosanitary certificates, but these have major drawbacks, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

“Paper certificates are not easily corrected when last-minute changes are needed and can be lost,” the FAO said. This can lead to border delays and penalties and could jeopardize the quality of some goods.

This spring, an FAO report looked at trade data from Serbia, Egypt, Ukraine and Uzbekistan and found that electronic phytosanitary certificates — or “ePhytos” — were easier and cheaper to use and fairly inexpensive to adopt.

Exporting companies found savings ranging from $0.25 per tonne to $5.98 per tonne for fruit shipments.

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Rollins, in Mexico City for meetings with officials including President Claudia Sheinbaum, told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Monday that President Donald Trump was “very focused” on reopening the border, which has been largely closed to Mexican livestock since May.

“We’re still not at the point where I am comfortable opening the ports, but I think every day that goes by we get a little bit closer,” Rollins said.

“I want to have every confidence that we have overturned every stone, that we understand every nuance, that we are deploying every tool in the toolkit,” she added.

Rollins, who declined to give a time frame for reopening the border, said she would speak to top U.S. officials about the issue on Wednesday and would have more conversations about screwworm with Trump.

Mexico’s agriculture ministry did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Mexico taking it ‘very seriously’

Mexico has been working to contain the outbreak, which has spread northward from Central America, rattling the livestock and beef industries of both the U.S. and Mexico. Although U.S. officials say the pest has not yet breached the U.S. border, it threatens $1.8 billion in damage to Texas’ economy alone, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate.

In September, Rollins criticized Mexico for failing to sufficiently implement measures to stop the screwworm’s spread, highlighting growing tensions between the two nations as the pest continues its advance north.

On Monday, though, after her meetings with Mexican officials, she said the efforts of both countries were “a completely different, more sophisticated, impressive operation,” than where they were in the spring.

Mexican officials “have taken it very seriously,” Rollins said, adding that she was “very impressed” with Sheinbaum.

“I believe sincerely, it is the most collaborative effort, perhaps in our lifetime, between the two different departments of agriculture.”

Parasitic flies

Rollins said there had been 11 cases of screwworm in Mexican states that border the U.S. in recent months, though they were all contained and treated.

Screwworms are parasitic flies whose females lay eggs in wounds. Their larvae burrow through living flesh, eventually killing their host if left untreated.

“The key is keeping the screwworm away from the southern border of America, and it’s gotten really close – too close – so now we just have to make sure we can push it back,” she added.

In Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, some ranchers have blamed the spread of the outbreak on the federal government’s failure to crack down on organized crime groups that traffic in stolen livestock, which enables them to tap a lucrative market and extort money along the way.

Illegal movement a “big issue”

Animals may be smuggled in from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, or other Central American nations, often bearing counterfeit ear tags and forged documents.

Rollins said the illegal movement of cattle was a “big issue” that she wanted to dig into more, while noting that Mexico had put in new protections and checkpoints in place to better control for illicit livestock trade.

The border closure has added to the already tight cattle supply situation in the U.S., where beef prices have risen to records as herd sizes have declined to their lowest in decades at the same time consumer demand remains strong. About 250,000 head of cattle are waiting south of the U.S. border to enter, Rollins said.

The secretary said that rising beef prices, however, are a “non-factor” in considering whether to reopen the border.

“I think that we can never compromise the safety of the herd for the cost,” Rollins said, adding that doing so prematurely could lead to higher costs later on if the screwworm enters the U.S. and devastates the cattle industry.

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Berdegue said he spoke to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a video conference and that they had made advances but still did not have a date for reopening the U.S. border to Mexican cattle.

Why it matters: The U.S. ban on Mexican cattle imports has contricted an already tight cattle supply, contributing to record high prices.

“We have made considerable progress, and I am very optimistic,” he said in President Claudia Sheinbaum’s dailymorning press conference.

They agreed to test modular mobile plants in Mexico that could increase sterile fly production by up to 20 million additional flies each week if successful, Berdegue said, adding that this was the first case of the plants being used.

The U.S. government has kept its border mostly closed to Mexican cattle imports since May as the screwworm, which infests and can kill livestock if untreated, has moved from Central American into Mexico, rattling the livestock sectors of both countries.

Mexico is also working to open a sterile fly plant in southern Chiapas state in 2026, with the help of a $21 million investment by the U.S. It is expected to eventually produce 100 million flies weekly.

The technique involves breeding millions of flies, sterilizing them with radiation, and releasing them into the wild. When sterile males mate with wild females, no offspring are produced, and the population collapses over time.

“We will only be able to get it out of the country once we have the additional 100 million flies,” Berdegue said.

Sheinbaum had said last week that Berdegue would travel to the U.S. to meet with his counterparts in person with the aim of reaching an agreement on the reopening of the border.

The Mexican president announced on Monday that she and President Donald Trump agreed to extend a looming trade deadline for “a few more weeks” to discuss pending issues with Washington.

— Reporting by Cassandra Garrison and Natalia Siniawski

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Why it matters:Under the constant threat of tariffs from its largest trading partner, Canada must pivot to new markets like Mexico to keep the agriculture sector competitive.

MacDonald announced the launch of Canadian beef in the Mexican market alongside JBS Foods, Canada Beef and the Canadian Meat Council (CMC).

The Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) lauded the announcement, saying in an Oct. 16 written release “Alberta beef is taking centre stage in Mexico’s retail market,” a market it said has been “long dominated by U.S. suppliers.”

The release states the partnership will result in approximately 20,000 tonnes of beef from the Brooks, Alta. plant shipped to stores in Mexico.

CMC Senior Director of Government Relations and Policy Lauren Martin said the meeting has opened up potential for more than just Alberta beef in Mexican Costcos.

“Both pork and beef, there’s a large consumer base there. So just based on economy alone, Mexico is an area of interest for us”

“This announcement is a culmination of a lot of work behind the scenes. So similarly, on the pork side … do we see the same potential for pork as for beef? Yeah.”

According to an Oct. 17 news release from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), pork is one of Canada’s top exports to Mexico, along with Canola, wheat and beef.

Diversification key

Martin said the government should keep making similar efforts to diversify markets.

“The way Prime Minister Carney positioned this particular trade mission is an effort to diversify. And indeed, we did see some new customers, some new business relationships.”

Keith Currie, President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) said in an interview with Glacier FarmMedia he also sees opportunities for Canadian commodities like pork, corn and other grains.

“Most of the corn that they bring into Mexico comes from the U.S., but given where the dollar is at and given where the trade tensions are, Mexico is certainly looking to Canada, and probably more specifically Ontario,” he said.

Currie also pointed to the significant milling industry in Mexico, which is already showing intrest in more Canadian imports: MacDonald’s trip saw Mexican milling company Groupo Trimex preparing to expand into processing Canadian exports of oats and canola.

Expansion opportunities

MacDonald also met with state organizations in Guadalajara to learn about expansion opportunities for Canadian oilseeds and with food manufacturer Oleomex, which reportedly plans to double its imports of Canadian Canola in the next three to five years.

Canola Council of Canada President Chris Davison said Mexico has been a top five market for Canadian canola for years, and the possibility of expanding further is exciting for the industry.

“There are a number of other factors that go into determining whether that’s realized or not, but it’s certainly encouraging,” Davison said. “It sends a message about the value that industry attaches to quality Canadian canola.” He added Mexico is a strong market not only for seed and oils, but for meal as feedstock as well.

Davison said having Mexico as a reliable customer is encouraging for a very export-focused market, especially amidst a year of trade threats from the U.S. and China, Canada’s top two canola export markets.

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This annual event is an opportunity for senior agricultural officials and industry representatives to work collectively on agricultural trade, market challenges and rural development issues. It is designed to enhance trade relations between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Alberta’s agri-food industry is driven by agricultural exports, valued at $17.5 billion in 2024. The United States is Alberta’s top export market for agriculture and agri-food products, while Mexico is the fourth largest export market.

During the Tri-National Agricultural Accord, Minister Sigurdson engaged with key elected and appointed officials from the United States and Mexico. The minister also explored opportunities for expanding trade into new and emerging markets in North America and promoted Alberta’s high-quality agriculture and agri-food products.

On October 14, Minister Sigurdson travelled to Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. From October 16 to 18, he met with leaders and participated in the Tri-National Agricultural Accord. He returned to Alberta on October 18.

The Canadian delegation to the Tri-National Accord included representatives from Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Québec, and Prince Edward Island.

In 2024, Alberta exported $9.3 billion in ag products to the United States, a four per cent increase from 2023. The United States imports beef, live cattle, crude canola oil, oilseed cake and meal, processed potatoes and many other good from Alberta.

In 2024, Alberta’s agri-food exports to Mexico were valued at $571.6 million with beef, canola seed and wheat being key exports. Mexico is Alberta’s fourth largest agri-food export market after the United States, China and Japan.

Alberta will host the 35th Tri-National Agricultural Accord in 2026 in Calgary.

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“Canada and Mexico share a strong partnership shaped by years of collaboration and more than three decades of free trade,” said MacDonald in a news release, adding “this trip is about further strengthening our ties, developing relationships, and creating opportunities that will drive growth and prosperity in both of our nations.”

Between October 14 and 17, MacDonald will meet with Julio Berdegué, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Javier Calderon, the Head of Mexico’s National Health Safety and Quality Service. Talks will focus on diversifying and growing trade between the two nations, said the release.

MacDonald will also meet with local business leaders and stakeholders “to promote Canadian agricultural and agri-food products, strengthen bilateral relationships and explore opportunities of mutual interest.”

This visit will seek to further strengthen Canada’s bilateral relationship and expand agricultural co-operation. It comes following a September meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, where the Canada-Mexico Action Plan 2025-2028 was announced.

In Mexico City, MacDonald plans to connect with provincial counterparts and industry representatives attending the Tri-National Accord later that week. MacDonald will also travel to Guadalajara to continue his outreach with key Mexican stakeholders.

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Mexico recorded 6,703 cases of animals infested with New World screwworm as of September 13 since the start of the outbreak in November of last year. That was compared to 5,086 confirmed cases during the previous period, which ended August 17.

The latest report by sanitation agency Senasica, which was published on September 26 and seen by Reuters on Wednesday, shows the outbreak is becoming more concentrated as it moves northward through Mexico.

Of the total cases, 5,258 were confirmed in cattle.

The spread of screwworm as it moves closer to the U.S. border has sparked a diplomatic spat between the two trading partners as the U.S. casts blame on Mexico for not doing enough to contain the parasite, which infests and can kill livestock if untreated. The U.S. government has kept its border mostly closed to Mexican cattle imports since May.

There were five confirmed cases in Puebla state for the first time, which is about 80 miles (129 km) from capital Mexico City. There were also 744 cases in Oaxaca state, compared to 453 in the August report.

Veracruz state saw cases nearly double to 476 from 252 a month earlier. Chiapas state, which borders Guatemala, remains the area most affected by the outbreak, with 3,474 confirmed cases, up from 2,875 in August.

Mexico confirmed a case of screwworm in an animal in Nuevo Leon state on September 21, which borders the U.S., and said it was immediately treated to prevent a further outbreak.

In August, the U.S. confirmed its first human case in the United States of travel-associated screwworm from an outbreak-affected country, after Reuters exclusively reported on the case. The last major outbreak of screwworm in the U.S. was from 1972 to 1976 across six states.

The U.S. government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday after Congress and the White House were unable to reach a funding deal, leading to the furlough of about 42,000 USDA staff, roughly half the agriculture agency’s employees.

The agency is expected to use emergency funds to continue animal health programs related to diseases like bird flu and screwworm, according to the agency’s 2025 shutdown contingency plan.

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