Let's All Cheer For NAFTA!
Oops, maybe not. Mexican campesinos appear not to believe that NAFTA has been a godsend to them. What's the matter with those people? Aren't they capable of feeling gratitude for the privilege of being included in a free trade agreement that embraced Mexico, along with Canada and the United States? Don't they realize that a lot of (low paying) mechanized and (higher paying) industrial jobs fled south to their country from their continental partners?
In the process impoverishing both Canada's and the United States' smoke-stack industries, slipping the manufacturing rug out from under the sturdy feet of factory workers. (But benefiting corporate interests.) Well, someone must have benefited, must be benefiting still from the removal of trade barriers? What? You say the corporations themselves, with no border allegiances, raking in the extra profits from this terrific deal? That there's been no trickle-down effect?
The National Campesino Confederation of Mexico appears to estimate that NAFTA has injured the financial prospects of five million small-holding farmers, most of whom work less than two hectares of land, without modern equipment. Back-breaking, barely-sustainable farming. Why not give up all that hard work for so little income? Oh. No other means of making a living. Starvation no option.
NAFTA, it would appear, by the figures released by this study, has benefited a niggling 2% of Mexican producers - for the most part those who grow export crops such as strawberries, avocados and winter vegetables. The corn and bean-crop farmers are the ones feeling the pain, and they represent the great majority. And the Mexican government has been complicit in the decline, having dismantled national agricultural programs extending credit.
Sounds kind of familiar. Reminds Canadians of the pain being felt by all those small-holding farmers, family farms and traditional farming communities within Canada who are feeling the pinch of unfettered internationalism and free markets. With an amazing, an appalling, a frightening number of farmers declaring bankruptcy, selling out, going out of business. What happens with the rising price of fuel for transport from international venues, when home-grown farmers become rare entities of provision?
Such inconvenient questions. Just look at poor Mexico - and Mexico is poor by some international standards, despite its slow economic emergence. Under provisions of NAFTA, tariffs on agricultural products have been lifted, so that white corn, beans, sugar cane and powdered milk have begun entering Mexico duty free. These products enter cheaply as a result of high U.S. subsidies paid to American farmers.
It used to be called dumping, and it was regarded as a true evil. In its newer guise it truly is evil. Fully 30-million campesnos' livelihoods are likely to be threatened, with 1.5-million driven from productivity.
In the process impoverishing both Canada's and the United States' smoke-stack industries, slipping the manufacturing rug out from under the sturdy feet of factory workers. (But benefiting corporate interests.) Well, someone must have benefited, must be benefiting still from the removal of trade barriers? What? You say the corporations themselves, with no border allegiances, raking in the extra profits from this terrific deal? That there's been no trickle-down effect?
The National Campesino Confederation of Mexico appears to estimate that NAFTA has injured the financial prospects of five million small-holding farmers, most of whom work less than two hectares of land, without modern equipment. Back-breaking, barely-sustainable farming. Why not give up all that hard work for so little income? Oh. No other means of making a living. Starvation no option.
NAFTA, it would appear, by the figures released by this study, has benefited a niggling 2% of Mexican producers - for the most part those who grow export crops such as strawberries, avocados and winter vegetables. The corn and bean-crop farmers are the ones feeling the pain, and they represent the great majority. And the Mexican government has been complicit in the decline, having dismantled national agricultural programs extending credit.
Sounds kind of familiar. Reminds Canadians of the pain being felt by all those small-holding farmers, family farms and traditional farming communities within Canada who are feeling the pinch of unfettered internationalism and free markets. With an amazing, an appalling, a frightening number of farmers declaring bankruptcy, selling out, going out of business. What happens with the rising price of fuel for transport from international venues, when home-grown farmers become rare entities of provision?
Such inconvenient questions. Just look at poor Mexico - and Mexico is poor by some international standards, despite its slow economic emergence. Under provisions of NAFTA, tariffs on agricultural products have been lifted, so that white corn, beans, sugar cane and powdered milk have begun entering Mexico duty free. These products enter cheaply as a result of high U.S. subsidies paid to American farmers.
It used to be called dumping, and it was regarded as a true evil. In its newer guise it truly is evil. Fully 30-million campesnos' livelihoods are likely to be threatened, with 1.5-million driven from productivity.
Labels: Agriculture, Environment, Realities
posted by Pieface | 6:22 PM
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