Seeds planted 14 Years ago by NAFTA Mature In Mexico

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Dagobah Resident
When people are protesting the death blow being delivered to their culture, their cries are muffled. Buried on page A10 of the February 1, 2008 New York Times is the following very drily titled article "Mexican Farmers Protest End Of Corn-Import Taxes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/world/americas/01mexico.html?ex=1359608400&en=0bace402cf8c3b11&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

The article is accompanied by a photograph of thousands of farmers marching peacefully, demonstrating against the elimination of Corn-Import Taxes. The picture depicts the planning that must have gone into bringing all these people together in an orderly way.
The marchers seem organized by group; they carry signs; there is an aisle that is left open in the middle of the photograph- a clear space which the protesters seem to respect. The photograph is too small to include all the marchers: some are cut off at the front, and others are cut off at the back.

How large was this protest? "Stretching for more than four miles, the march was a sea of tan faces, cowboy hats, flags and calloused hands gripping banners with slogans like "Without farms there is no country." Of couse there are conflicting reports of the numbers: "The police said at least 50,000 people joined the protest; organizers put the number at 100,000."

The marchers were accompanied by "a herd of cattle", and "50 tractors" They represented communities from all over Mexico, "The organizers bused people in from as far away as Chihuahya in the north and Yucatan on the Gulf Coast".

The event that precipitated the march was the lifting of the Corn-Import Taxes which has protected traditional, Mexican crops:

"On Jan. 1, the last tariffs on corn, beans, sugar and milk were lifted
under the North American Free Trade Agreement, completing a 14-year
transition to an open market between Mexico, the United States, and Canada"

Union leaders are trying to get the government of President Felipe Calderon, who supports free trade, to renegotiate the treaty.

"THE FARMERS WORRY THAT A SURGE OF INEXPENSIVE CORN
COULD DOOM MILLIONS OF PEASANTS WHO FARM PLOTS OF LESS
THAN 12 ACRES. THEY ALSO COMPLAIN THAT THE GOVERNMENT
HAS DONE ALMOST NOTHING TO PREPARE FARMERS FOT THE OPEN
COMPETITION."

I would just like to repeat the what I find to be the most important words in the above statement: "SURGE OF INEXPENSIVE CORN, COULD DOOM MILLIONS OF PEASANTS,
"THE GOVERNEMENT HAS DONE NOTHING TO PREPARE FARMERS FOR THE OPEN COMPETITION."

When I read these lines I see images of entire families forced to leave their generational homes and ways of life to travel to unfamiliar places to seek unskilled employment and to endure the wretched conditions in the factories and sweatshops they will find there. The other alternative is to cross the border to the United States where they will face anti-immigrant fervor and draconian policies.

That the issue revolves around corn is highly significant in Mexico because

"...corn was first domesticated 5,000 years ago and the culture revolves
around its consumption. Underlying the politcal discourse is a widespread
sentiment that poor Mexicans have benefited little from free-trade
policies, while giant businesses have reaped profits."

The significance of corn to Mexicans is analogous to the importance of the buffalo to the Plains Indians; it is more than a food crop, it is a food crop with its own mythology, customs, knowledge, rhythms which are inexticably linked to the culture.

This push to control agriculture goes beyond the economics of supply and demand, and profit is not limited to Mexico. Just last Sunday, February 27, 2008 an article described the adulturating the traditional Ankola strain of Ugandan cattle with the foreign Holstein breed, a type that is not suited to Uganda. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27cow-t.htmlx=1359003600&en=1e4183e2465539a0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink This will at first appear to increase prosperity, but will open a pandora's box of future problems. The "Free Trade" agreements sown in the '90's are beginning to harvest their crops dislocation, poverty, and despair.

I was wondering if these Trade Agreements and the effects of them can be collected and put on a timeline so that people can see how quicky these events are unfolding?
 
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