Agricultural Issues

Under the logic of global trade, all countries should base their economic and trade decisions on comparative advantage. In other words, production of any good which another country can produce more cheaply should be stopped, regardless of its cultural or historical significance. Since trade agreements are made on a country-wide basis for the most part, any effect on local economies will be negligible to those in charge. The decision to totally open up markets to the point where local economies are entirely dependent on a product, and are forced to compete directly with foreign "corporate agribusiness" producers (who have the benefits of scale and mechanization) inevitably leads to economic difficulties. Domestic food security can never be a priority under comparative advantage marketing. When Mexico experienced a drought in 1996 and could not produce enough of its own corn, the government decided to import it anyway, without consulting farming groups, and ignoring the almost 200% tariff that was then in existence. Naturally, when the country as a whole decides to import, the local community loses its only historical source of livelihood. This would appear to lead to cheaper agricultural goods for consumers worldwide, but if countries move away from production of basic staples, they are left vulnerable in times of war. Governments that focus only on gaining a comparative advantage in a certain market cannot place the concerns of their own people first, leading to price increases of basic food stuffs. Furthermore, when agricultural multinationals control significant amounts of the market for a certain product, their ability to manipulate costs for producers and consumers increases greatly. Before the implementation of NAFTA, one half of Mexico's land was dedicated to corn production, produced by 2.5 million farmers. In 1996, Mexico imported $1.1 billion in corn, traditionally one of their strongest products. Mexico's peasantry and rural population makes up 24 million people, or about a third of the total population of the country. Before President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office in 1988, the corn industry in Mexico was heavily subsidized by the government, which protected it against an influx of cheap corn from the United States, and served to employ a high percentage of the rural population. Large numbers of rural workers, both those who deal with corn directly and indirectly, have been and will be continue to be displaced by NAFTA. They inevitably migrate to the city, where they have difficulty finding employment. Many of the indigenous farm workers from the south of Mexico who are now in the north doing wage work in export agriculture were displaced from the south by inexpensive and subsidized U.S. corn.

The increasing quantity of trade across U.S. borders has undermined inspectors' ability to keep up inspection standards. Regardless, NAFTA dictates that no imported food can be inspected to a greater degree than domestic food, even though it has been proven that imported produce very often has more pesticide violations. The harmonization mandate of NAFTA requires the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to, in effect, bring their food standards down to a lowest common denominator or face trade sanctions.

Ejidos, are agrarian communities with community land titles, in which over half of Mexico's agricultural land have been held since the 1930's agrarian reform programs. According to the World Bank:

The Mexican government's neo-liberal economic policies [are] aimed in part at abolishing the ejidos. . . . The agrarian reform clause of the Mexican constitution, has been gutted, and under NAFTA, import barriers are being dropped, enabling cheap corn and other staple foods to flood Mexican markets, impoverishing the peasantry even further As demonstrated by Chiapas, the progressive impoverishment of rural peoples can only lead to further social unrest and the eventual destabilization of larger Mexico. The Zapatista movement in Chiapas is demanding a reversal of neo-liberal policies, proclaiming, for example, that NAFTA is a "death certificate" for the Indian and peasant peoples of Mexico. The Zapatistas are calling for a new agrarian reform program for the entire country, one that will not only redistribute the better lands, but also provide peasants with the resources they need to create a new agricultural economy to meet their needs rather than those of rich landowners and the Mexican state. (Food First Policy Brief-web)

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