[Texgreen] Trade-Mexico: Staple Foods at Risk from Free Trade Market

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:02:06 +0000

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<P>I would grant that Mexico is in severe agricultural state but this is primarily affected by the change in the world's consumption of corn, wheat and increasingly soybeans.&nbsp; The opening of Mexican markets would be best served with a increase in the production of&nbsp; soybeans and a reduction in the usage of corn as a staple to the production of corn for ethanol production and the reduction of oil production to meet Kyoto guidelines.&nbsp; The Calderon government should be encouraged to develop Mexico's economy along the green revolution to promote energy sustainibility.</P>
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<P>Herb<BR><BR></P></DIV>
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<DIV></DIV>From:&nbsp;&nbsp;margaret &lt;max104@io.com&gt; To:&nbsp;&nbsp;Texgreen &lt;texgreen@gp-us.org&gt; Subject:&nbsp;&nbsp;[Texgreen] Trade-Mexico: Staple Foods at Risk from Free Trade Market Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:02:01 -0600 &gt;http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36728 &gt; &gt;Trade-Mexico: Staple Foods at Risk from Free Market &gt;Diego Cevallos &gt;InterPressService &gt; &gt;MEXICO CITY, Feb 26 - When the Mexican government negotiated the &gt;North &gt;American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in force since 1994, it &gt;estimated &gt;that 14 years of safeguards for its maize and beans would be enough &gt;time for &gt;local production of these crops to become competitive. But things &gt;did not &gt;work out that way. &gt; &gt;In only 11 months' time the market for these 
products, the &gt;traditional &gt;staple foods of Mexican consumers, will be wide open to receive &gt;maize and &gt;beans from the other two NAFTA partners, Canada and the United &gt;States. &gt; &gt;The tension is growing. The resources that were to improve &gt;agricultural &gt;competitiveness have been frittered away, and the plans never &gt;worked. &gt; &gt;The Felipe Calderon administration announced on Friday that to &gt;prepare for &gt;the free market, it will grant farmers this year support in the &gt;amount of &gt;640 million dollars. &gt; &gt;The government promised that these funds, to be spent on advice to &gt;boost &gt;competitiveness and on seeds and other back-up, will be additional &gt;to public &gt;investment in rural areas, on healthcare and roads, for example, &gt;totalling &gt;an 
unprecedented 16 billion dollars this year. &gt; &gt;Furthermore, new inter-ministerial work and supervision strategies &gt;will be &gt;adopted to face the challenge of free trade in maize and beans, &gt;grown by &gt;3.7 million small farmers, the majority of whom are poor. &gt; &gt;Calderon said he would propose to the governments of the United &gt;States and &gt;Canada that a working group be created to find ways of mitigating &gt;the impact &gt;of this extension of free trade in Mexico. &gt; &gt;His goal is to secure the backing of these countries to improve &gt;production &gt;and marketing of the Mexican crops, he said. &gt; &gt;But Calderon's announcements have not satisfied small farmers' &gt;organisations, opposition politicians and activists, who regard &gt;NAFTA as the &gt;main cause of the problems in the 
rural areas, home to 30 million &gt;out of the &gt;country's 104 million people. &gt; &gt;Removing the tariff barriers will sound the death knell for rural &gt;workers, &gt;said the National Peasant Federation (CNC), linked to the opposition &gt;Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which promoted, negotiated &gt;and &gt;signed NAFTA in 1992, while it was still in power. &gt; &gt;U.S. competition in the product categories to be liberated will be &gt;very &gt;tough on Mexico. The maize yield in this country is about 2.3 tons &gt;per &gt;hectare, compared with 7.2 tons per hectare in the United States, &gt;while U.S. &gt;farmers produce 2.9 times more beans per hectare than Mexican &gt;farmers. &gt; &gt;The United States subsidises its farmers at a level of over 19 &gt;billion &gt;dollars a year, more than all of 
Mexico's rural sector funding &gt;sources put &gt;together. &gt; &gt;And Mexico is not self-sufficient in these food crops. In 2006 it &gt;had to &gt;import 5.2 million tons of maize and 122,000 tons of beans, nearly &gt;all from &gt;the United States, to cope with domestic demand. &gt; &gt;Because NAFTA clauses allow these food imports by Mexico, some &gt;observers &gt;argue that the market has in fact already been thrown open. &gt; &gt;Small farmers' organisations want the Calderon administration to &gt;renegotiate &gt;the treaty. However, the president is not considering this option. &gt; &gt;Renegotiating the treaty is not the most promising approach, unless &gt;Mexico &gt;wishes to offer concessions to its NAFTA partners in relation to &gt;products &gt;like tomatoes, avocadoes and green vegetables, where this 
country &gt;already &gt;has considerable advantages, regional integration expert and &gt;professor at &gt;several universities German de la Reza told IPS. &gt; &gt;NAFTA was negotiated en bloc, with joint and reciprocal commitments &gt;and &gt;concessions in different product categories. "If a single element &gt;were to be &gt;renegotiated now, the whole treaty would be at risk of falling &gt;apart, and &gt;none of the partners wants that to happen," de la Reza said. &gt; &gt;Former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) broached the subject of &gt;renegotiating the agricultural chapter of the treaty with the United &gt;States, &gt;but the suggestion was rejected out of hand. &gt; &gt;De la Reza hopes that the financial support for farmers announced on &gt;Friday &gt;will be put to its proper use and not, as in the past, be 
 &gt;distributed in &gt;return for political backing. &gt; &gt;Mexico should be able to honour its commitment to remove tariff &gt;barriers for &gt;maize and beans in 2008, so long as enough support is given to &gt;farmers, de &gt;la Reza said. &gt; &gt;The main opposition force, the leftwing Party of the Democratic &gt;Revolution &gt;(PRD), together with small farmers organisations and activists, are &gt;adamant &gt;that opening maize and beans production to competition is suicide. &gt;They &gt;blame NAFTA, which has been in force for 13 years, for the country's &gt;agricultural problems. &gt; &gt;In contrast, Braulio Serna, head of the agricultural development &gt;unit of the &gt;Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)'s &gt;local &gt;office, said that NAFTA does not affect Mexico's 
rural sector to a &gt;significant extent. &gt; &gt;In 2005, Serna presented an exhaustive study on Mexican agriculture &gt;in which &gt;he claimed that only a biased view could point to free trade as a &gt;determining factor in the country's agricultural performance. &gt; &gt;Rural problems, poverty and mass migration are rather the effects of &gt;poor &gt;public policies, global and national economic crises, climate &gt;factors, low &gt;levels of education and training, and depressed international prices &gt;of a &gt;number of agricultural goods, Serna said. &gt; &gt;De la Reza also blames bad policies, going back to before NAFTA came &gt;into &gt;effect. Governments have had 14 years to prepare for this challenge, &gt;and &gt;they have done nothing. &gt; &gt;With the barriers about to come down, small farmers are 
predicting &gt;yet &gt;another crisis. (END/2007) &gt; &gt;http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36728 &gt; &gt;_______________________________________________ &gt;texgreen mailing list &gt;texgreen@lists.gp-us.org &gt;http://lists.gp-us.org/mailman/listinfo/texgreen </BLOCKQUOTE></div> <hr> <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMBENUS/2743??PS=47575" target="_top">Win a Zune™—make MSN® your homepage for your chance to win!</a> </html>