As stockpiles of fresh tomatoes wait, rotting, in warehouses all over Mexico, the farmers who grew them are getting a bit more than frustrated by the attention the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is paying to tomatoes from south of the US border. The FDA has advised American consumers to avoid eating most tomatoes grown in Mexico until the source of the current Salmonella epidemic has been identified.
The FDA warnings specifically include all red tomatoes of the Roma, plum, or round varieties. Mexico exports almost 800,000 tons of these varieties of tomatoes to the US every year.
FDA and Mexican public health investigators, however, have not found any trace of Salmonella in the Mexican tomatoes that have been tested thus far. Investigators list central and southern Florida as other potential sources of contamination. The Salmonella outbreak first appeared in April, when farmers from central and southern Florida and many growing regions in Mexico were harvesting their tomato crops.
Tomatoes from the state of Baja California have never been included in the FDA’s warnings because their tomato crops had not reach maturity at the time the outbreak developed. Farmers in the region, however, are suffering from the FDA warnings anyway. Many Americans fear tomatoes from Mexico, regardless of the region of their origin, leading to many canceled orders throughout Mexico.
Mexican farmers, feeling the economic effects of the warnings against eating raw tomatoes, are experiencing sales described as “crippling” to the country’s $1 billion tomato export industry.
Mexican consumers understand the economic woes faced by the farmers but they are enjoying the low cost of the tomato-flooded market within their own borders. Tomato prices at the largest wholesale market in Mexico have dropped from $1.16 per kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, to only 48 cents.