The Mexican barbasco trade was the trade of the diosgenin-rich yam species Dioscorea mexicana, Dioscorea floribunda and Dioscorea composita which emerged in Mexico in the 1950s as part of the Mexican steroid industry. The trade consisted in Mexican campesinos harvesting the root in the jungle, selling it to middlemen who brought it to processing plants where the root was fermented and the diosgenin extracted and sold to pharmaceutical companies such as Syntex who used it to produce synthetic hormones.