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  • From: "Jill Taylor Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] The Mexican Farmers' Movement: Exposing the Myths of Free Trade
  • Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 20:18:00 -0600

This is a very long article - very extensive.  I have snipped a few paragraphs to give you a sense of it.  It starts out with a description of one of the largest protests in Mexico of farmers since 1930's. - Jill
 
Contains: 
 
By the time they reached the Zócalo, the sum of the tidy contingents—each filed behind its identifying banner—came to nearly a hundred thousand. Not since agrarian reform under President Lázaro Cárdenas in the late thirties had so many campesinos marched in the nation's capital. And perhaps not since the revolution had such a diverse crowd united behind such radical demands. The farmers no longer demanded government programs to alleviate their poverty or help sell their products. The central demands of the march—renegotiation of the agricultural chapter of NAFTA and a far-reaching national agreement on rural development-shot straight to the heart of the neoliberal model and called for a new vision.

The reemergent Mexican farmers' movement reflects not only the serious crisis in the country's rural sector but also a crisis of faith in free trade itself. With the common slogan "El campo no aguanta más" (The countryside can't take it anymore), a wide range of rural organizations have set off a national debate on NAFTA. As a result, some of the fundamental myths of the free trade model are being questioned as never before in Mexico.

[snip]

The first distortion comes in the form of U.S. government farm subsidies. The 2002 Farm Bill authorizes a whopping $248.6 billion in farm supports. Federal government subsidies now make up 40% of the U.S. net farm income. Though they ostensibly serve to keep family farmers afloat, actually the billions in subsidies flow disproportionately to corporate farmers. Along with export-import financing, they assure that huge food and agriculture transnationals increase their profits and global reach. Mark Ritchie of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) notes that U.S. export subsidies end up in the pockets of the world's largest grain traders, primarily Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.

[snip]

Free trade cannot exist in the context of global oligopolies. In contrast to a World Bank report that 73% of Mexico's rural population lives in poverty (a significant increase over the pre-NAFTA period), the major U.S. agribusiness transnationals have grown by leaps and bounds under the auspices of the free trade model. As international traders with both export and import activities, many receive a triple subsidy under NAFTA: 1) as exporters of below-cost U.S. farm products, 2) as recipients of direct export subsidies, and 3) as Mexican importers. They also get Mexican subsidies; for example, Cargill receives the lion's share of subsidies in the state of Sinaloa-Mexico's most heavily subsidized agricultural state. Couple that with the added advantage of wiping competition off the map through below-cost prices and the deal is complete.



  • [Market-farming] The Mexican Farmers' Movement: Exposing the Myths of Free Trade, Jill Taylor Bussiere, 03/02/2003

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