Lawmakers, officials and farmers join talks
The group is drawing on members of the livestock, agriculture and budget committees, Leche para el Bienestar officials and producers from Los Altos de Jalisco to prepare proposals backed by technical analysis.
Ricardo Gallardo Juárez (PVEM), who chairs the Chamber's Livestock Commission, led the meeting, according to a report published October 20, 2026. Participants included deputy Mayra Dolores Palomar González; Víctor Hugo Pérez Rojas, Leche para el Bienestar's director of operations; and Salvador Espinosa, president of the Lagos de Moreno Livestock Association.
Guaranteed prices and overdue payments
Participants want the guaranteed milk price formula to reflect what farmers actually spend to produce milk. The price under discussion is 11.50 pesos per liter. The group also agreed to establish an institutional process to track public spending and address late weekly bank transfers to producers.
The 2026 operating rules, published December 30, 2025, specify how the price is built: a base payment of 10.90 pesos per liter for cold milk or 10.75 pesos for hot milk, plus quality and continued-participation incentives of up to 0.60 pesos. That brings the totals to 11.50 pesos for cold milk and 11.35 pesos for hot milk. The rules cover small and medium producers with 1 to 500 milking cows.
The payment problems extend beyond the producers at the meeting. An October 8, 2026 report described a federal budget contingency affecting more than 500 million pesos nationwide, with payments interrupted in dairy-producing areas of Jalisco, Chihuahua, Chiapas and the Bajío. The report also identified Valle de Santiago as the site of one of the state company's three strategic collection centers in Guanajuato.
Late payments have depleted farms' working capital and affected their dealings with seed, agricultural chemical and veterinary medicine suppliers. Material presented to lawmakers put corn silage, hay and protein concentrates at as much as 72% of operating costs per liter of milk.
Limited storage makes collection quotas critical
Thousands of family-run and semi-extensive farms in Los Altos de Jalisco produce about one-fifth of the fluid milk consumed in Mexico. They use rapid-cooling tanks to bring raw milk to 4°C, but farmers said a reduction in public collection quotas can leave those tanks full in less than 48 hours.
Farmers told lawmakers that stopping milking is not a workable response: it can contribute to infectious mastitis and disrupt lactation. The group called for expanded capacity at public receiving centers and enough operating resources for Leche para el Bienestar to take in milk suitable for processing.
For context, Leche para el Bienestar's network had 54 collection centers in 14 states as of April 2026, according to El Informador. The centers accepted milk from more than 3,086 small and medium dairy farmers listed in the National Producer Registry, at a guaranteed purchase price of up to 11.50 pesos per liter.
Budget proposals and payment safeguards
The Budget and Public Accounts Commission said federal spending should establish clear food-security priorities rather than leave primary producers to cover funding shortfalls in social-supply programs. Meeting participants discussed 2027 contingency funds to offset rising agricultural input costs, along with bridge financing through agricultural-development banks.
Separately, the Livestock Commission approved its opinion on the proposed 2027 Federal Expenditure Budget on October 21, 2026. According to La Verdad, the opinion seeks to reallocate 8,731,488,609 pesos within Ramo 08, the Agriculture and Rural Development budget. The draft budget, known as PPEF 2027, assigns that category 88,758.82 million pesos, about 17% more in nominal terms than the 75,836.49 million pesos approved for 2026.
The commission's opinion proposes 686,690,000 pesos to strengthen Leche para el Bienestar's Social Supply and Guaranteed Prices Program. PAN deputy Alonso de Jesús Vázquez Jiménez also proposed a 10% increase in the Leche para el Bienestar program budget, from 6,886 million to 7,553.6 million pesos.
Alongside funding, working-group participants sought audits of beneficiary registers, certified weighing at milk receiving points and dependable weekly payments for deliveries under contracted quotas.
Import rules and labeling also under review
Data considered by the legislative committees ranked Mexico 15th worldwide in milk production and fifth in dairy imports. Lawmakers questioned imports of skim milk powder, products containing vegetable fats, combined formulas and dehydrated whey. They proposed stricter import rules and labeling that provides more detail about food formulations.
