US potato growers hope that this could be the year they are allowed to ship fresh spuds into all of Mexico, which would be a $120 million opportunity. The domestic spud industry, with help from members of Congress, is using a pending Asia-Pacific trade agreement as leverage to try to accomplish that.
A market access agreement signed by the two nations in 2003 allowed for the shipment of fresh U.S. potatoes within a 26-kilometer zone near the border. It called for increasing access to the five northern Mexico states the next year and for Mexico to consider granting full access by 2005.