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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Peru Free Trade Agreement is disaster for farmers everywhere
  • Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:17:16 -0700

Peru free trade agreement is disaster for farmers everywhere

The same international grain traders who dumped below-cost grain into
Mexico after NAFTA, driving over a million farmers off the land and
fueling illegal migration into the United States, will now do the same in
Peru.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Peru Free Trade Agreement is disaster for farmers everywhere
http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=10623
By Ben Burkett
MinutemanMedia.org

American anxiety about our food system is at an all-time high. With
every report of tainted or poisonous foreign food imports or new E.
coli recall, consumer demand grows for locally produced,
source-verified products. As a family farmer who grows collard
greens, okra, watermelon, and squash and has struggled for years
trying to obtain a fair price for my crops, I welcome wholeheartedly
this phenomenon. However, our Congress members seem to be oblivious
to the livelihoods of family farmers and the wishes of consumers as
they continue to pass more disastrous free trade agreements. Instead
of learning from the failed lessons of the National American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the House of Representatives passed the Peru
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in November. The U.S. Senate is looking to
vote on it this month. Farmers and consumers both here and in Peru
will be the big losers. The only winners will be corporate
agribusinesses dumping cheap grain and seeking the cheapest labor and
most lax environmental standards.

As a family farmer from Mississippi, I actually thought NAFTA might
be able to help farmers like me access new markets. But I quickly
found out how wrong I was when many of the farmers in my cooperative
lost our cucumber contracts from corporations such as Heinz and
Vlasic, who chose to buy instead from Mexico. The Peru FTA simply
continues this failed NAFTA-model for agriculture that destroys local
food systems both here and abroad, while favoring industrial-style,
environmentally damaging farm systems. The United States has
historically had an agricultural trade surplus. We are now verging on
becoming a net food importer and already have a $400 million
agriculture trade deficit with Peru. Now is not the time to allow
more cheap foreign food that would undercut American family farmers
and ranchers and jeopardizes our food security. Since the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and NAFTA went into effect, the United States has
lost more than a quarter million independent family farms. Already,
the asparagus industries in California and Washington have been
devastated by the flood of cheap imports from Peru. Processing
companies such as Del Monte and Green Giant have shifted their
production to Peru to take advantage of lower farmland, labor, and
environmental compliance costs. American ranchers will be harmed by
the Peru FTA's failure to include food safety standards for cattle.
Peru's beef production is growing and could soon export to the United
States, despite a foot-and-mouth disease problem. Our family farmers
in the South are increasingly losing out to cheap imports from
Central and Latin America. Soon, you won't be able to find any local
produce at your supermarket or restaurants if we continue passing
more free trade agreements!

As harmful as the Peru FTA will be for American farmers and ranchers,
the effects on Peruvian farmers will be just as devastating. As an
African American farmer, I am particularly concerned about the impact
the agreement will have on the millions of Afro-Peruvian and
indigenous farmers. The same international grain traders who dumped
below-cost grain into Mexico after NAFTA, driving over a million
farmers off the land and fueling illegal migration into the United
States, will now do the same in Peru. Many of those displaced
Peruvian corn and rice farmers facing economic catastrophe will be
forced to migrate or grow illicit drug crops to survive. In July,
four million Peruvians took to the streets to voice opposition to the FTA.

Farmers at home and abroad need a new direction on trade and
agriculture policy that protects rural livelihoods and promotes food
sovereignty. The first step in that new direction must be rejection
of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and the upcoming agreements with
South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Family farmers want to produce for
our families and our local communities, not export markets. Free
trade directly undermines and weakens renewed consumer demand for
local and healthy foods. We have already outsourced our energy
security. Why are we doing the same with our food security? Food
sovereignty, not free trade, needs to be the foundational basis of
our policies if we are to build a more healthful and just food system.

Ben Burkett is a fourth-generation farmer from Petal, Mississippi. He
serves as vice-president of the National Family Farm Coalition and
belongs to the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives and Federation
of Southern Cooperatives.

source: Topeka Capital Journal


Printed from http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=10623





  • [Livingontheland] Peru Free Trade Agreement is disaster for farmers everywhere, TradingPostPaul, 12/08/2007

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