Mexican Farmers Hold NAFTA Protests

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The final trade barriers on U.S. corn, beans, sugar and milk fell when the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect on January 1, 2008. In response, Mexican farmers have organized a series of protests in order to register their complaints, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.

In Mexico, corn and beans are not only dietary staples but are essential crops for regional farmers. The farmers are concerned that the free entry of cheap U.S. corn may do serious harm to rural Mexico and encourage further immigration.

The Mexican government does not agree and the President Felipe Calderon celebrated the end of the trade barriers.

The Mexican Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas has stated that 90% of the imports affected by the final barriers have already entered the country free of tariffs in 2006, and that the effect on local producers would be minimal.

Approximately 100 farmers formed a partial blockade at the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, carrying signs that read "Without Corn There Is No Country."

The farmers were able to block several of the traffic lanes entering Mexico for much of Tuesday and part of Wednesday.

Miguel Colunga Martinez is a leader of a local peasant group and has said that protesters would "inspect" all trucks crossing the border and stop any carrying farm goods. "Up to now, not a single trailer has passed."


"We will not have the weapons to compete with the growers of the United States and Canada, who will sell corn cheaper than it's produced here," said Lorenzo Mejia Morales, president of the National Union of Mills and Tortilla Producers.

On the other side, the Mexican agricultural officials have said that NAFTA benefits their country by allowing Mexican farm products into the United States.

"We have become the principal supplier of fruits and vegetables into the United States," Cardenas said in a news release, citing onions, avocados, mangoes and watermelons as examples of successful Mexican exports.

Mexican imports of U.S. corn have risen from less than 1 million metric tons in 1993 to 9.9 million metric tons in the 2006-07 marketing year that ended in July, according to statistics from the U.S. Agriculture Department.

The corn that is imported is for the most part yellow corn, which is used to feed livestock and to make corn syrup. The approximately 1.5 million corn farmers in Mexico mostly grow white corn, which is used to make tortillas.

Thos who oppose NAFTA are concerned that the Mexican farmers will be unable to compete with their American counterparts because the government subsidies they receive are paltry compared with those given to U.S. farmers.