Report reveals that ‘fracking’ in Mexico puts 38,000 agricultural producers at risk

Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’used in the extraction of hydrocarbons, in Mexico puts at least 38,338 producers in the field support program at risk ‘Sowing Life’as well as citrus crops, vanilla and basic grains, as revealed this Wednesday by an investigation by CartoCrítica and the Mexican Alliance against Fracking.

Likewise, the report calculates the damage of ‘fracking’ for the extraction of hydrocarbons in Mexico in a value of almost 20,657 million pesos (US$ 1,197.5 million), with the states of Tamaulipas (11,100 wells), Veracruz (10,356) and Nuevo León (6,581), the ones with the highest concentration of wells with hydraulic fracturing.

In the report ‘Fractured the field. Potential impacts of ‘fracking’ in agriculture and in Sembrando Vida’it is detailed that 7,581 productive units benefiting from the current Mexican Government’s program are exposed to the effects of hydraulic fracturing, which is carried out less than 5 kilometers from an oil well.

Of these, the 60% It is concentrated in Veracruz, in the Gulf of Mexico, followed by the states of Tabasco and Puebla.

However, when adding the number of producers that could potentially be affected by pending tenders, the figure increases to 38,338 productive units, mainly affecting the beneficiary units of ‘Sowing Life’ in Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, and Tamaulipas.

The associations indicated that the current estimated damage to the beneficiary units amounts to 545.83 million pesos (US$ 31.6 million) and could reach 2,760 million pesos (US$ 154.8 million) with the wells where there are hydrocarbons and that are pending bidding.

“If we continue fracturing wells in the aforementioned areas, there is a risk of affecting the beneficiaries of a project that aspires to be something more than a direct economic transfer for peasant families.”said Manuel Llano, co-author of the report and member of CartoCítica.

According to the National Hydrocarbons Commission, until 2019 there were 7,840 fractured wells in Mexico, distributed in 68 municipalities of seven Mexican entities, with a total of 35,979 fractures.

The investigation of the Mexican organizations estimated that the 54% of vanilla production in the country is being affected by the drilling of these wells, followed by the 37% of tangerine and litchi production, 29% sorghum, 25% of passion fruit, 23% of mandarin, among at least 18 crops.

These crops can be affected by contamination of groundwater with heavy metals and chemical compounds used in the ‘fracking’, explained Carla Flores, co-author of the report and also a member of CartiCrítica.

Mexican organizations also criticized the lack of political will in Congress to promote initiatives for legal changes to prohibit hydraulic fracturing in Mexico, as well as the failure of the campaign to eliminate the ‘fracking’ of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.