MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s supply of corn, a staple of the national diet, is assured “for all of the first half of 2013,” the Social Development Secretariat said.

The country currently “has an inventory of nearly 120,000 tons of corn and it is expected that 150,000 more tons will enter by the end of the year,” the secretariat said in a statement.

The grain should be available until at least the middle of next year, the secretariat said.

Diconsa, a Social Development Secretariat agency, distributes basic foods via 11,389 community stores in 962 Indian cities, the majority of them home to low-income residents.

The network of stores provides “coverage of 92.8 percent” in these areas, the secretariat said.

Diconsa, which purchases beans, rice, milk, wheat flour and corn flour at preferential prices, also has nearly 25,500 food stores across Mexico.

The distribution network has prevented “intermediaries from using the corn market” to speculate, allowing the price of the grain to remain stable over the past five years, the secretariat said.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, said last month that volatility in the prices of basic foods would continue until the economic uncertainty in Europe ended. EFE