NAFTA and US Corn Subsidies: Explaining the displacement of Mexico's corn farmers
Thanks to Trevor Lyman for tipping me off to this story, which comes from the Prospect Journal via Break the Matrix. I wasn't previously aware of the USDA Federal Subsidies-NAFTA-Illegal immigration connection.
Since the 1994 implementation of NAFTA, massive rural to urban migration took place within Mexico as agrarian farmers moved to metropolitan centers. This tri-lateral free-trade agreement between the Canada, the United States and Mexico was unprecedented, particularly the relationship between the United States and Mexico, as states with such drastically different levels of development merged their economies. This paper will examine which factors are responsible for this massive internal migration within Mexico following the integration of the North American economies. There are two highly divergent explanations for the Mexican migration and subsequent urbanization that followed the signing of NAFTA, which I will detail in the literature review. The determination of the culpable factors for this migratory flow is crucial because the accepted interpretation will significantly influence how states will approach free-trade agreements and their inclusion of rules pertaining to the trade of agricultural commodities in the future. This study is particularly pertinent as the looming Panama and Colombia free trade agreements, modeled after NAFTA, are currently being debated by the United States Congress.
The paper’s underlying hypothesis is that American corn subsidies, which led to the flooding of Mexican markets with American corn following the signing of NAFTA, is the primary factor responsible for the post-1994 internal displacement of rural farmers in Mexico. The trade agreement effectively eliminated all trade barriers and placed Mexico’s domestically produced corn in direct competition with highly subsidized corn imported from the United States. Consequently, Mexican corn farmers, who comprise the majority of the country’s agricultural sector, experienced drastic declines in the domestic price of their product and thus faced increasing difficulties to attain a sustainable living. Hence, we observe high levels of migration into Mexico’s cities in the latter half of the 1990’s, and the beginning of the 21st century, as these displaced farmers abandoned their previous livelihood in search of employment.
Accordingly, this report investigates the relationship between American corn subsidies and rural to urban migration in Mexico. Specifically, the study will evaluate the migratory population shifts in Mexico and American agricultural subsidies with respect to data on quantities of U.S. crop exports to Mexico, measures of Mexican internal crop production, levels of domestic crop prices, and rates of agricultural employment. To discern the specific impact of American corn subsidies, trends in the statistics delineated above regarding corn will be juxtaposed with avocado produce, which is contrastingly not subsidized by the American government. To preview this paper’s findings, it is evident that the subsidization of American corn drastically lowers both the price of corn and levels of employment in the agricultural sector, triggering the out-migration of rural corn farmers to Mexico’s cities. This report will commence with a literature review that situates the study’s research in context of the historical discourse between proponents of free-trade deals and critics that call for the responsible regulation of trade expansion. Next, it will describe the rationale that guides the hypothesized relationship between federal subsidies for American corn and Mexican internal displacement and further explicate methods of statistical measurement. Lastly, the paper will detail the research findings and propose additional issues for future research.
GMO corn, also
So, Monsanto is controlling the world's food supply with their mutant product. In Mexico they will buy our GMO corn over their good corn that has a lot of variety. It will not only kill the rural farmer but kill the crop. Watch "The Future of Food" on Hulu. It explains this aspect of this very real nightmare. Evil, evil, evil.
Also, more on GMOs; go to saynotogmos.org. There are some very extensive articles with a lot of research showing how bad they are. Everyone should be informed on this topic.
Healthnut4freedom
The lip of truth shall be established forever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment...Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are His delight. Prov 12:19,22
They are trying to kill all small buiness, everywhere.
They cannot control the little people without taking away their food sources. They want to dominate every private business, to eliminate them. It is the only way for them to beat you into submission. You will be forced to beg from the big boys. Their consumer numbering system will be easier to impliment with only a few big businesses needed to impliment the system. TOTAL control. Healthcare will provide the access to all personal accounts. When is implimentation?
hemp
does anyone know why Mexico does not grow hemp? '
The rice subsidies has done the same thing to Nicaragua.
R3ovlUTION charles walker 8322474577
Yup....
1) Eliminate the Mexican farmer / farming community / family unity / 500 years of culture.
2) Replace with cultureless unemployed city-dwellers, away from family and home, creating a younger generation that is purposeless, isolated and frustrated.
3) Fill the airwaves and the internet with promises of Nike tennies and name brand clothes and new cars, thus encouraging the young to need MORE MONEY than they can make in lawful employment.
4) Deluge the public with ads for "easy credit" instead of the "old fashioned" way of saving up to buy things, thus putting them in constant debt and in constant need of more money.
5) Take over small family farms with LARGE corporate farms, thus driving out even more small farmers.
6) Encourage Mexico to fight the "drug gangs". Then, when they are in trouble, send in advisors to help "solve" the problem.
Having accomplished steps 1 - 6, it is only a matter of time until, just like Costa Rica...... my dear Mexico will invite US troops in to help with the war on drugs that the US created.
Brilliant evil on parade.
Thomas Jefferson: “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."
Viva La Revolucion!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmaTNf4YhEs
Bring our family farms back and be aware (beware)
of the super highway and the economic and quality of life implications dismantling sustainable permaculture and confounding local populations.
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/40035#comment-518072
c. Odious offense of serious attack on quality of human dignity, with grave humiliation and degradation of massive numbers of American Sovereigns, Our culture and commercial freedoms to contract or not contract.
d. Atrocities wide spread by uncontrolled poisons tolerated by de factor corporate authority, rising to inhumane acts believed to be a widespread and systemic practice, and pattern of inhumanity.
Page 3 of 8
http://www.restoreamericaplan.net/files/9812/7681/4798/Queen...
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Yet another way this government has
used taxpayers resources to the detriment of someone else. I'm ready for a tax out, no withholding, no 1099, no 1040...STOP SENDING THESE BASTARDS YOUR MONEY !! IF THEY WANT TO SCREW PEOPLE OR LITERALLY KILL THEM AS IN THE CASE OF WAR MAKE THEM BORROW IT, THEN FIRE THEIR ASSES.
Just one last kick in the nuts, then a final deathblow
Let me guess,
After the small farmers are forced out, the fat cats will come in and buy up the land at dirt cheap prices. I don't put anything past these crooks!
Very interesting.
This is the same thing that has happened to the US, in virtually every other job sector, except by a factor of about x1000.
ALL of these imported products produced in countries like China, etc, with low-wage production, are in fact "subsidized" by the low economic standards-of-living in these other countries. And in China, it's basically a forced-labor condition because of a gov't controlled economy.
Instead of the gov't "giving money" as a subsidy, they just either make the workers work for almost nothing, or the country is so economically depressed that they will accept almost nothing to do the work.
In either case, it amounts to the same result as this Mexican issue, because it does the same thing to American producers who can't make products "below cost", when operating in an American standard-of-living economy.
This is what the globalist "Free Trade" policies have wrought, and it's nothing more than manipulation of the markets to re-distribute jobs and production around to various places. It is the furthest thing from "free trade" that can be imagined.
While it's certainly sad to see it happening to Mexican corn farmers, you could find millions of stories just like this which have happened to almost every American job sector, unemploying many millions of Americans for the very same reasons.
The "global master manipulators" are tilting the playing fields in all the arenas, to re-distribute jobs and production of almost all products to where they want them to be.
What happened to the American textile industry?
Gone.
The US shoe industry?
Gone.
US Tomatoes?
Gone.
US Automobile manufacturing?
Bankrupt.
US steel?
Bye-bye.
Etc, etc, etc. Ad infinitum.
These manipulators are not "free traders".
They are "free traitors".
There is nothing "free trade" about what is going on economically in this world today.
But to some, it seems, as long as it happens to us "evil greedy Americans", and puts cheap Chinese goods on the shelves at Wal-Mart, then it's just "market forces at work", and it's "really good", and "gov't should not intervene with equalizing tariffs, what with Smoot-Hawley and all that".
And with the same breath, they totally ignore the other side of the equation that subsidized goods are being dumped in here by the millions of shiploads, and they don't care about that. That's "okay" with them, as long as Americans are taking the shaft because of it.
Here are the facts.
This country was founded on paying for gov't via TARIFFS, imposts, and excises. There was not supposed to be any income taxes.
But what do we do now?
We damn near eliminate any tariffs and trade taxes for international trade, but we pile in on to Americans to pay these trade taxes domestically, and shove a great big income tax down our throats too.
Ignoring the Constitutional route, and implementing their globalist "big idea", which seems to be what this gov't is most interested in doing.
The support for all this global fake "free trade", which anybody with half an eye could see is total market manipulation, can only be described as "willing complicity" in the globalist scam. It sickens me.
bump
to remove the corporatocracy veil
Oh HO!! I watched "Food,
Oh HO!! I watched "Food, Inc." recently, and as horrific and truthful as it was, one of the two nagging questions that I was left with, was "How come we subsidize corn below the production cost?" It made no sense to me at all. NOW It begins to make sense, and is so devious, that even I can not fathom the minds that are running this country. Whoever writes these bills, whoever is "behind the scenes" had better soon find out no one is following their agenda anymore, or their WILL be riots in the streets of America.
Exactly
I got a lot of info on corn from the movie King Corn, which is great. It went into the subsidies, and how, as a result, corn is everywhere and how, as a result, America is obese.
But it didn't go in this direction, so this was news to me. And yes, with another piece of the puzzle, it all does make sense.
bump; this article should be seen by
many more people. It's ramifications are extensive.
Can you say High Fructose
Can you say High Fructose Corn syrup? Whatever that is, that is one of the major bellie busters in our food suuply. Do not buy anything with that god awful high fructose corn sysrup. Yuk!!!
There is no Left or Right -- there is only freedom or tyranny. Everything else is an illusion, an obfuscation to keep you confused and silent as the world burns around you." - Philip Brennan
"Invest only in things that you can stand in front of and pr
It goes beyond that
This article traces the 'illegal immigration' problem back to corn subsidies, and the U.S. government.
Really makes you wonder. Is the government just incompetent, or is there really something deeper going on?
Assuming that question is rhetorical
Michael, I'm sure there is a sector of the government that is truly incompetent or naieve but the policies aren't decided by those people. They're the product and brainchild of those at the top of the corporate and banking pyramid. If you want more convincing, take a look at "The World According To Monsanto" to see the level of corruption these people are capable of. (I think it's available on www.topdocumentaryfilms.com ) It's global, it's monopolistic, it's got full compliance by our policies in every industry from pharma, to osha, to FDA, to foreign affairs and NAFTA.
At the very top, it's a fully coordinated dance designed to outsource everything from the US that isn't resource based, to undercut and monopolize everything here that is dependent on local resources and to capture as much of the American people's assets as can be done. The people here and in every other country don't really matter. We're just holding title to precious assets that TPTB challenge each other to take away so we're always seen as a virus to them. The various ways they accomplish this are not that numerous and are all tried and tested based on an uninformed public.
The good news is that none of these tactics work against an informed public. All we need to do is get people informed. For every new person who learns the real info on a situation like this corn subsidy and how it affects trade, employment, prices, living standards and so many other industries, that will translate to many more people that get the info passed on to them. And as Arlo Guthrie said in "Alice's Restaurant", "Before you know it, you've got a movement". We need sites like DP and Digg and the many that provide the stories we share. Beyond that, we need a new level of info sharing site that people can trust to provide unbiased truth. I think when that day comes, the empire walls will start to crumble a little.