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Reply #100: It should be pointed out, again:American agriculture has destroyed [View All]

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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-20-05 06:06 PM
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100. It should be pointed out, again:American agriculture has destroyed
the ONLY income many Mexican workers have. Why not take the time to realize this?
Effects of "Free Trade" Agricultural Policies on Small Farmers and Food Security

CAFTA and the FTAA would consolidate and expand free market policies that have already devastated rural communities under NAFTA and the WTO.

Loss of Small Farm Income

The devastation of Mexican corn farmers due to NAFTA most sharply exemplifies the horrifying effects of these policies. After NAFTA eliminated Mexican quotas for corn, artificially-priced U.S. corn flooded the market. U.S. agribusinesses typically dump corn on the Mexican market at prices 30 percent below the cost of production. Before NAFTA, Mexico only imported about 2.5 million tons of corn per year. In 2001, they imported over 6 million tons of corn. The price of Mexican corn fell 70 percent. Millions of small family corn farmers have been left without a source of income, and have been forced to abandon their communities in search of a way to feed their families. The bedrock of traditional Mexican rural life, corn farming families, have been torn apart by NAFTA.
(snip/...)
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cafta/Agriculture.html.pf

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Through one program or another, American subsidies have made earning a simple living almost impossible for Mexicans in the mostly rural population.

Our government plans have also wiped out their sugar farming workers, as well as their wheat farmers, etc.

If you don't want desperate people trying to find work in the only remaining place available, stop the programs that have destroyed their only means of surviving IN THEIR OWN HOMELAND.
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