Communities need to feed themselves first, says a Canadian who was at
an international meeting in Mexico that discussed the plight of family
farms in North America.
National Farmers Union women’s president Shannon Storey said the late
September meeting concluded that global trade is pushing all farmers to
grow for export markets.
Storey said it was hard to find coffee produced in Mexico when she was
there. The coffee is mainly from Vietnam and it tends to be adulterated
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with cornmeal.
The push to grow for trade has caused a number of Mexican farmers and
labourers to abandon their land as unprofitable and to seek jobs in
cities or the country’s northern neighbours, Storey said. In Canada,
Mexican migrants work in the orchards and vegetable gardens of Ontario
and British Columbia, and in the pork industry in Manitoba and Ontario.
The U.S. farm bill has made it harder for Mexican and Canadian farmers,
she said. Even American delegates were critical of the farm subsidy
bill, which they said would benefit farming corporations rather than
small families.
“There’s not much evidence that the current situation is good for
farmers.”
Storey said although Mexican farmers oppose more trade deals, their
government is promoting the Free Trade in the Americas concept that
would open borders throughout the western hemisphere.
While in Mexico, Storey also attended a planning meeting of Via
Campesina. The NFU is one of the founders of this 10-year-old lobby
group of peasant farmers, aboriginal people, agricultural co-operatives
and rural women’s groups from the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia and
Africa.
The group is one of two agencies that will head the agricultural
peoples’ side to be presented next September in Cancun, Mexico, at a
meeting of ministers from countries belonging to the World Trade
Organization.
“The farm peoples’ movement is lobbying in part to create an economic
model that works better for people on the land and gives them a voice,”
said Storey.
