NAFTA Inflames Mexico's Countryside
  By Global Exchange

When the former leaders of Mexico, Canada and the United States gathered in Washington, DC in December to mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the mood was all back-slapping and smiles. But a few thousands miles away, in Mexico City, the atmosphere was much different. Capping a month of raucous campesino protests that stretched from Chiapas to Chihuahua, thousands of farmers stormed the Mexican capitol to demand changes in NAFTA’s agricultural rules. In a dramatic illustration of the failures of the “free trade” model, NAFTA has lit a fire in the Mexican countryside.

What should we make of our rural neighbors’ ire? A warning signal. US agricultural subsidies and NAFTA rules are harming small farmers on both sides of the border. Unless these policies are changed, we can expect sweeping farmer protests in Mexico that will shake the country to its core.

Mexican farmers are in dire straits, due in large part to NAFTA. Since 1994, US corn exports to Mexico have increased eighteenfold as US producers dump massive quantities of cheap corn on the market. The drop in corn prices caused by this dumping has crippled the 15 million Mexicans who rely on corn farming. Another 10 million farmers have been similarly devastated by the collapse in prices for coffee and sugar.

US taxpayers are directly funding the crisis in the Mexican countryside. US agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill are able to dump corn on the Mexican market because of the massive subsidies they receive from the US government. Such subsidies enable US farmers to produce corn and wheat well below production costs—an advantage not enjoyed by Mexican farmers. While Mexico gives about $720 per year to each farmer, the US spends $20,800 per farmer. Last year the US Congress approved a $70 billion increase in farm subsidies over the next 10 years.

So US farmers are doing well, right? If only. The new farm supports will go overwhelmingly to the largest, corporate-owned operations. By encouraging over-production, the subsidies end up dropping farm prices on both sides of the border, to the dismay of family farmers everywhere. While agribusiness giants Conagra and ADM have seen profit increases of 200 and 300 percent, respectively, since NAFTA went into effect, small farmers in the US have been pushed into bankruptcy. Thirty-three thousand US farmers went out of business since NAFTA—three times the pre-NAFTA rate.

To add insult to injury, ordinary consumers have not received any savings from the decrease in wholesale prices. Between 1993 and 2000, prices for food eaten at home in the US increased 20 percent. Tortilla prices in Mexico City have also risen.

Now the situation threatens to become worse. On January 1, NAFTA’s latest stage eliminated Mexican tariffs on wheat, rice, potatoes, pork, apples and barley. Pitting hi-tech US agribusiness corporations against small-scale Mexican farmers is no contest. Thanks to NAFTA, Mexico will soon be converted from a self-sufficient country to a country that cannot feed itself.

What can we expect if action isn’t taken to reverse the collapse in rural communities? The anger and the desperation will deepen. And the protests will grow larger.

The GMO Threat

As they struggle against NAFTA, Mexican corn farmers are facing another threat—contamination of ancient corn species by strains of genetically modified (GM) corn. In late 2001 corn with genetically modified material was discovered in a region of Oaxaca where no GM experiments had ever taken place. Experts came to realize that the millions of tons of US corn dumped into Mexico mostly likely caused the contamination. Though the corn was intended only for food use, some farmers replanted the seeds. Now the contamination is spreading. Local species that over millennia had built up immunities to local diseases and pests have been compromised. Farmers are outraged that their corn is suddenly more vulnerable than ever before.

TAKE ACTION!

Fight the “Free Trade” Agenda

This September that other “free trade” bad boy—the WTO—will be holding a summit in Cancun. In the days before the summit Global Exchange will sponsor a Free Trade vs. Fair Trade Reality Tour in Mexico. To learn more about the tour, contact Xiomara at xiomara@globalexchange.org or 415-575-5541.

Many communities in the US are planning solidarity actions to coincide with protests in Cancun. For tips on how to organize an event in your community, write to deborah@globalexchange.org.