Fwd: [Food-news] Mexico's corn farmers lose livlihoods to cheap US corn

[Guest guest]

> [Food-news] Mexico's corn farmers lose

> livlihoods to cheap US corn

>

> *www.foodnews.ca <http://www.foodnews.ca/>*

>

> *Editor's Note: Ten years into NAFTA, Mexicans are

> producing less and

> less corn for their own consumption while importing

> lesser quality,

> genetically modified and heavily subsidized corn

> from the US. Mexican

> agricultural laborers cross the border to work in

> American fields or

> produce export produce at home. Full liberalization

> in corn under NAFTA

> is to take place in 2008. **Andres Manuel Lopez

> Obrador, a leftist

> candidate* *in the country's recent presidential

> election, vowed not to

> honour this deadline. Obrador lost the election by

> the narrowest of

> margins and has now also lost an appeal

>

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060830.EMEXICO30/TPStory/?qu\

ery=mexican+election>

>

> to review the election results by Mexico's highest

> court.*

>

>

> **

>

>

*http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/31/MNGIVK8BHP1.DTL & hw=\

monica+campbell & sn=003 & sc=583

> *

>

> *Mexico's corn farmers see their livelihoods wither

> away *

> *Cheap U.S. produce pushes down prices under

> free-trade pact*

>

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/31/MNGIVK8BHP1.DTL>

>

>

> - Monica Campbell and Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle

> Foreign Service and

> Chronicle Staff Writer

> <thendricks

> Monday, July 31, 2006

>

> *(07-31) 04:00 PDT Atlacomulco, Mexico* -- Tending

> his sun-drenched

> half-acre cornfield, Jose Davila represents a part

> of Mexico that may

> fade away as the pressures of free trade intensify.

>

> " I'm an antique, " said the hunched 90-year-old

> farmer. " Who wants to

> work all day in the sun and earn so little? All the

> younger people now

> look for jobs in factories or construction. Either

> that, or they go to

> the United States. "

>

> The growing dilemma that Mexico's 2 million corn

> farmers face as the

> tariffs that protect them shrink under the North

> American Free Trade

> Agreement was an issue in this month's presidential

> election. And as the

> United States wrestles with already high levels of

> illegal immigration,

> some experts say the demise of Mexico's peasantry

> deserves serious U.S.

> attention.

>

> " The Bush administration has sought to control

> immigration at the

> border, but that's virtually impossible, " said

> Harley Shaiken, director

> of UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies.

> " The beginnings of

> immigration are in the displacement of farmers in

> Mexico. "

>

> An estimated 1.5 million agricultural jobs have been

> lost since NAFTA

> went into effect in 1994.

>

> Tariffs protecting beans and corn, including the

> white corn Mexicans use

> for tortillas, which make up a third of their diet,

> are to end in

> January 2008. That is exposing Mexican corn farmers

> -- two-thirds of

> whom subsist on 12 acres or fewer and 90 percent of

> whom lack irrigation

> -- to competition with U.S. farmers who are so

> highly mechanized they

> can produce a metric ton of corn with a half-hour's

> labor, according to

> the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

>

> American corn exports to Mexico -- now one-fifth of

> the corn consumed

> there -- have more than tripled in NAFTA's first 10

> years, and the USDA

> predicts they will double again in the coming

> decade.

>

> " Prices have fallen ever since NAFTA, " said Davila's

> son, Casto, 67, who

> helps his father tend the cornfield, which depends

> on central Mexico's

> May-September rainy season. Some of the corn they

> grow feeds their

> livestock, while they sell some and use some

> themselves.

>

> After buying fertilizer, renting a tractor to plow

> crops and laboring in

> the fields, the Davilas barely break even with corn

> prices at a

> rock-bottom 2.5 pesos, or 25 cents, per kilogram

> (2.2 pounds).

>

> " Farmers here have long felt abandoned, " said Casto

> Davila, who earns

> the bulk of his income from his small housing

> construction company. " The

> signal from the government is that we're better off

> selling our land. "

>

> The Mexican government has helped ease the

> transition to free trade with

> cash subsidies to farmers, but those, too, are to be

> phased out in 2008.

>

> World Bank economist Daniel Lederman predicted,

> however, that Mexico's

> next president will face pressure to continue aiding

> agriculture, which

> employs 20 percent of the population. And he said

> 2008 is unlikely to

> bring a dramatic economic shock.

>

> " In practice, you've had free trade already, " said

> Lederman. " I'm not

> sure that 2008 is when the sky falls. "

>

> During Mexico's recent presidential campaign, the

> two leading

> candidates, left-leaning Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

> and conservative

> Felipe Calderon, disagreed on how to provide relief

> to the country's

> struggling corn farmers. Lopez Obrador insisted he

> would not honor the

> 2008 deadline, which he said threatened to put corn

> farmers out of

> business, and he vowed to increase subsidies and

> offer growers

> low-interest loans.

>

> Calderon, the election's apparent victor, who comes

> from the ruling

> National Action Party, called Lopez Obrador's

> policies paternalistic and

> unsustainable. Like President Vicente Fox, Calderon

> believes Mexico must

> modernize and diversify its agricultural sector in

> part by instructing

> farmers to grow more profitable crops such as

> organic vegetables and herbs.

>

> " We need to consider alternatives that will make

> life in the countryside

> more competitive, " said Ernesto Cordero, Calderon's

> economic adviser.

>

> " We cannot keep hanging on to programs that depend

> on subsidies and more

> subsidies, " Cordero said. " Why not test other crops

> and, at the same

> time, build up infrastructure in agriculture areas

> so that producers can

> transport their products more easily? "

>

> Yet cultural resistance and distrust of government

> may keep some farmers

> from signing on to a new way of work.

>

> " They say we should grow broccoli and asparagus, but

> where's the

> training program? " said Casto Davila. " Do they

> expect us to take on new

> methods, invest in new tools, and then suddenly find

> a new market for

> our goods? "

>

> Modernizing peasant agriculture is important, but

> the effect will be

> modest at best, said UC Berkeley's Shaiken.

>

> " There's no way peasant farmers in Oaxaca are going

> to be competitive

> with highly subsidized, very productive farms in

> Iowa, " he said.

>

> Cordero said he and others on Calderon's economic

> team would meet with

> agriculture leaders in coming months to define how

> such training

> programs should work. Meanwhile, Calderon has

> pledged to extend

> government programs that modestly subsidize small

> farmers. He also backs

> expanding efforts to produce ethanol from corn.

>

> Calderon has indicated he won't spend precious

> political capital pushing

> the Bush administration to reopen NAFTA.

>

> " It's more useful for us to spend our energy on ways

> to strengthen

> Mexico's manufacturing sector and build up our

> infrastructure than to

> push for changes on the agricultural front, " said

> Cordero.

>

> Free-trade advocates say the squeeze that Mexico's

> peasant farmers are

> feeling is an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of

> entering the global

> economy.

>

> " Trade gains are broad, and trade pains are very

> specific, " said Tim

> Kane, director of international economics at the

> Heritage Foundation in

> Washington, D.C. " A few people feel the pain, lose

> jobs, get displaced.

> That's what Mexico is experiencing. That's the path

> to progress. "

>

> The pain actually could be an incentive for farmers

> like the Davilas to

> adapt or move on, he said.

>

> NAFTA has stimulated growth in factory jobs,

> especially in border-based

> assembly plants, said the World Bank's Lederman, and

> that has helped

> absorb displaced farmers and deter migration to the

> United States.

>

> But manufacturing growth has not kept pace with the

> need for new jobs

> created by a growing population and a shrinking farm

> sector, said Sandra

> Polaski, director of the Trade, Equity and

> Development Project at the

> Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

>

> " At the end of the day, most of the migration comes

> from the

> countryside, " she said, adding that the additional

> downward pressure on

> corn prices in 2008 " will be a reason (farmers) send

> labor outside the

> household, whether to Mexican cities or across the

> border. "

>

> Polaski suggested that the United States borrow a

> page from the European

> Union's integration handbook and make major

> investments in Mexico's

> economic and educational infrastructure as the

> richer European countries

> did to prevent massive migration of workers from

> poorer countries like

> Portugal and Greece.

>

> " The United States must care, " Shaiken said,

> " because the United States

> must face the consequences. "

>

> /E-mail Tyche Hendricks at

> thendricks

> <thendricks./

>

> Page A - 4

> URL:

>

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/31/MNGIVK8BHP1.DTL

>

>

>

> --

>

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