MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mexican small farmers ask protection from NAFTA

Mexico's family farmers' organization claims that the outgoing conservative government of President Vicente Fox failure in stimulating domestic production, and free-trade agreements has driven subsistence farmers to the brink of ruin.

In a statement issued Monday, the National Peasant Farmers Confederation, CNC, claims that only the top 2% of Mexican farms have prospered under the Fox administration while poverty in recent years has "flooded" rural Mexico, particularly because of the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement with United States and Canada.

"NAFTA gave priority only to some 300,000 rural business-owners and marginalized over 29.7 million peasants involved in the production of staple crops, for whom there have been no advances, rather stagnation and setbacks" states CNC.

Under NAFTA, Mexico is supposed to eliminate tariffs imports on maize and beans by 2008, but CNC and other rural organizations are demanding the government impose safeguards on certain products to protect family farms.

Mexican small farmers fear being further pushed out of the market by cheap corn and beans grown by big U.S. producers who enjoy greater access to credit and technology and, in some cases, government subsidies. However CNC did acknowledge that the Fox administration has had success in giving "impetus to the cultivation and export of fruits, legumes and vegetables".

But CNC was also critical of the opposition PRI party which ruled Mexico for over seven decades and in 1994 introduced the country to the controversial NAFTA. The peasants and small farmers' movements, at one time pillars of PRI, have warned that their organizations are considering shifting allegiance to other political forces that effectively defend and protect their interests.