Mexican President visits Tlaltizapán

Tlaltizapán station supervisor Francisco Magallanes, assistant supervisor Pedro Gálvez, and station staff are accustomed to attending visitors, but 24 April 2007 was one day they’ll not soon forget! That morning, no less than Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, Agriculture Minister Alberto Cárdenas Jiménez, Agriculture Undersecretary Francisco López Tostado, numerous other dignitaries, and some 3,000 other visitors descended upon the facility to hear the President announce a new national program for sugarcane producers, processors, and marketers. “

They called us the previous Thursday to say the station was being considered as a site for the event,” says Magallanes, “and on Friday, without further ado, we were informed that they were indeed coming!”

With the able help of station personnel, who assisted the highly professional staff of the agriculture secretariat and the President’s office, the event came off without a hitch. CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga and Director of Resource Mobilization Rodomiro Ortíz were afforded courtesy invitations and front-row seats to greet the President and other dignitaries.