IT’S ONE thing to feel sorry for those poor Mexican peasants whom we occasionally read about in the news.
It’s another to understand why they are poor and displaced.
It’s yet another to realize just how closely our Canadian experience matches Mexico’s when it comes to the food trade. That can be both sobering and sorry.
We may enjoy fresh, summer-green broccoli and ripe tomatoes in January. But our pleasure comes at a big price for farmers, both here and in Mexico.
Under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade in agricultural products is being “liberalized,” with fewer protective tariffs against imports and more pressure to compete for export markets.
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The NAFTA came into effect in 1994 with later deadlines for removing import tariffs. As of Jan. 1, 2003 Mexico had to withdraw the remaining tariffs from all major foods entering the country except for beans, corn and powdered milk. Those go in 2008.
Since 85 percent of Mexican trade is with the U.S., highly subsidized U.S. food will pour into Mexico, destroying much of its Mexico’s farm sector.
Ending the 49 percent tariff on chickens means that now U.S. chicken producers (a handful of agribusiness corporations) can tailor their sales to meet the demand for white meat in the U.S. and dump the less desirable parts into the Mexican market at cut-rate prices. This will displace Mexican chicken production.
An estimated 70 percent of the workers in the pork industry will lose their jobs. Altogether, some 700,000 people will likely lose jobs in farming and other food industries this coming year, says Armando Paredes Arroyo, president of Mexico’s National Agriculture Commission.
Although Canada has larger farms, more investment (and debt) and more technology, farmers here suffer the same fate as their Mexican counterparts.
We lost 11 percent of our farms in the past five years and the bleeding continues. Competing with U.S. trans-national agribusiness corporations is a great equalizer. Small farmers everywhere lose out.
NAFTA supporters claim it has been a great success. Canada has more than doubled its agri-food exports since 1994.
Mexican officials can match that claim. Annual Mexican food exports have risen from $2.7 billion to $5.3 billion since 1994. Notably, food imports into both countries doubled during that period.
But farm families and rural communities don’t benefit from this food trade. While the financial crisis on many Canadian farms is worsening, poverty in rural Mexico has risen sharply.
In the face of this disaster, Mexican peasant and social organizations are taking action. They are demanding a moratorium on the implementation of NAFTA’s agricultural rules until they are fundamentally changed.
They want to end unfair competition from subsidized U.S. imports, protection for domestic markets, public investment in rural development and resource conservation, and better government support.
In short, they want a fair deal instead of the raw deal they’re getting under NAFTA.
Canadian farmers and citizens who value justice should support these demands. It’s time to demand our government renegotiate the terms of agricultural trade, making it fair for farmers and healthy for rural communities.
Taking NAFTA back to the shop would be a good start.
Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Western Producer.
