Agriculture and Rural Mexicans: Victims of NAFTA

As for the agricultural sector of NAFTA, this becomes a complicated issue. Agriculture wasn’t specifically negotiated as a direct provision of NAFTA, but there were subsequent agreements between the United States and Mexico and then by the Mexico and Canada that would open up different agricultural agreements with each binary. Agriculture is still considered as a part of NAFTA because the trade agreements were passed around the same time and as a direct consequence of NAFTA. Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox has called for enhancements of NAFTA to what he often refers to as NAFTA plus.

Nevertheless, the US and Mexican government opened the door for trade in agriculture between the two countries but it has had only negative consequences for rural Mexican farmers. An important thing to keep in mind in a discussion of “free trade” is how each nation deals with it’s agriculture prior to entering into the “free trade” market. Ever heard of subsidies? It is virtually impossible for Mexican corn to compete against American when the US federal government provides subsidies to American farmers that make it impossible for Mexican farmers to compete against. There has been 18-fold increase in the imports of corn from the United States into México from 1993 to 2000 (Cavanaugh and Anderson).

Doesn’t this seem to allude back to Nawal Saadawi? This is an Egyptian woman who recalled how after much pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Egypt was forced to export raw materials that the Global North demanded and ended up having to import more cotton than it exported as a result. The practices of the Global North forced Egypt into dependency.

And it just so happens that the World Bank and IMF see NAFTA as a positive step towards integration of the North American ‘trading bloc’. While the Mexican industrial sector seems to be pleased at receiving peanuts by being allowed to manufacture products that are foreign-owned, US farmers are forcing down American corn down Mexican farmers throats, who can no longer compete against the magic of subsidies.

A few months ago, Mexican farmers got into an uproar because the cost of the tortilla was rising as a result of the rising cost of corn. Why would corn prices go up? As it turns out the ‘global’ demand for ethanol is driving up the price. However it must be noted that ethanol is primarily consumed by the United States and that the United States chooses to use corn, which is an ample staple food that it produces in abundance, to create into ethanol. Brasil, for example, is another heavy producer of ethanol, however it makes its ethanol out of sugar cane.

The international price hike of corn in México has forced the country to—can you guess it?—import more corn from the United States. The administration of Felipe Calderón, México’s president has formed an agreement with Big Tortilla business to keep their price at a set amount.

In families where food is scarce enough, it seems that the New World Order has succeeded once more in 'opening up' the market of foreign trade and forcing México into becoming an exporter of goods it doesn't own and an importer of necessities it once made.