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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2007 
Tariff's End Riles Mexican Farmers
 Jeremy Schwartz - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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 |  | Many experts say that the great bet of NAFTA — that peasant farmers would find jobs in a burgeoning Mexican manufacturing industry — hasn't been realized. |  | |
Mexico City — Farmers and activists here are planning a series of protests as NAFTA enters its final stage on New Year's Day, when the last tariffs and quotas on corn, beans, milk and sugar melt away.
Opponents of the free trade agreement warn that the final lifting of trade barriers could spark even more migration from Mexico's devastated countryside and leave Mexico dependent on the United States for corn and beans, staple dishes since the age of the Aztecs.
At least one peasant group has said the NAFTA expansion could spark armed rebellion in the countryside if President Felipe Calderon's government doesn't do more to protect small farmers.
Corn and beans were considered especially sensitive to the Mexican economy when the free trade agreement was signed in 1993, and officials buffered them with 15 years of gradually dwindling protections.
Government officials insist the Jan. 1 opening is largely symbolic since corn and bean tariffs have mostly been phased out already.
NAFTA supporters in Mexico say protesters are trying to wrest more government aid by exaggerating the impact of the opening.
"It's an important date because it marks the end of the process," said Luis de la Calle, a Mexico City economist who helped negotiate the original agreement in the early 1990s. "But in terms of the market, there will be very little impact."
But members of Mexico's left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, the second-largest party in Congress, have called on Calderon to renegotiate the final opening and remove corn and beans from the list of unprotected trade goods.
Calderon, however, has shown no inclination to tinker with the free trade agreement.
"The government is scared of renegotiating [corn and bean tariffs] because renegotiating part could mean renegotiating the whole thing," said Jose Romero, a NAFTA expert at the College of Mexico. "And they worry renegotiating could send bad signals to international financial markets."
Mexican farm associations say the nation's farmers are woefully unprepared to face an onslaught of American corn, and they decry the large subsidies that U.S. corn farmers receive.
Last week the World Trade Organization launched an investigation into whether the United States has surpassed international limits on so-called trade distorting subsidies for its farmers by billions of dollars since 1999.
And American farmers are far more productive than their Mexican counterparts. According to the Mexican Institute of Competition, American farms produce an average of 22 tons of corn per acre, compared with just 6 tons per acre on Mexican farms.
Cruz Lopez, president of the National Farmers Confederation, said domestic corn producers fear they will go out of business, unable to compete with American imports, and leave Mexico dependent on the United States for its basic food needs.
"There is an abyss between the [subsidies] that we receive and those of the Canadian and U.S. farmers," Lopez said. "For us, it is very important to guarantee to the Mexican people that we can produce corn and beans."
Mexico imports about 10 million tons of corn annually, compared with the 22 million tons it produces domestically.
Mexican farmers are pushing for more subsidies from the Mexican government, and they are predicting dire consequences if they don't receive help.
"If this refusal to protect the national producers continues on the part of the government ... the countryside could take the path of weapons and the guerrilla," said Max Correa, leader of the Central Campesina Cardenista Peasant, a farmers' advocacy group. "It's not a catastrophic vision, it's a reality," he told the Mexican media recently.
Since Mexico entered into NAFTA, it has lost nearly 3 million farm jobs and seen a massive migration from the countryside to the United States. An estimated 80 percent of the 400,000 Mexicans who annually migrate to the United States are from rural areas.
Many experts say that the great bet of NAFTA — that peasant farmers would find jobs in a burgeoning Mexican manufacturing industry — hasn't been realized.
"The U.S. doesn't want them, the manufacturing industry can't absorb them, so where do they go?" Romero said. "They don't have the political strength to influence policies."
Experts say the high worldwide price of corn, driven by increased ethanol production, should provide a buffer for Mexican farmers, but that could prove temporary.
The end of sugar tariffs, however, should benefit Mexican producers by opening up the lucrative American market, de la Calle said.
But Mexican sugar producers fret that high production costs in Mexico could slow exports to the United States.
Among the protest actions planned are street rallies in various Mexican cities and a human chain along the U.S.-Mexico border. Protesters have already staged a week-long hunger strike in downtown Mexico City.
But with the Mexican Congress on holiday recess and Calderon uninterested in renegotiating, experts say the chances of heading off the Jan. 1 opening are non-existent. |
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