Mexico Solidarity Network

Website Links

Description

Mexico's rural crisis dates to the late 1970s, when PRI administrations began to implement neoliberal policies, cutting agricultural subsidies and assistance programs, especially for small and medium sized producers. With the implementation of NAFTA, small and medium sized agricultural producers were unable to compete directly with highly subsidized and mechanized US producers and transnational corporations that exercise effective monopoly control over international grain markets.

In January 1997, Metalclad Corporation of Newport Beach, California, filed a complaint under NAFTA alleging that the state of San Luis Potosí violated NAFTA provisions when it prevented the company from expanding a waste disposal plant. In 1991 Metalclad purchased the facility, which had a history of contaminating local groundwater, with the obligation to clean up pre-existing contaminants. After an environmental impact assessment revealed that the site lies atop an ecologically sensitive underground stream, the Governor refused to allow Metalclad to reopen the facility.

Capitalist production regimes hide the true social nature of production under the guise of depersonalized commodities. The only thing most consumers see is price, and they generally make decisions on whether or not to purchase a product based on price. The conditions of production are generally not a factor. Artisanry produced in cooperatives in which women members are actively involved in design, production and marketing decisions is qualitatively different than production of textiles in, for example, a maquiladora.

Corn is not the only agricultural commodity affected by low prices, over-production and monopoly markets. The international coffee market is another example of neoliberalism at work. Corporations that control the international coffee market are quite profitable. In fact, retail coffee prices are increasing in recent years, even as wholesale prices decline to 45 cents a pound, well below the cost of production. Coffee is not produced in the United States, but rather in the global South, accounting in large part for the lack of subsidies, price support and political clout of producers.

In addition to monopoly control and vertical integration, Cargill and other US corporations are able to dominate the international corn market because of extensive state subsidies that allowed US exporters to dump corn in Mexico in 2001 at 33% below the actual cost of production. In May 2002, President Bush increased state agricultural spending by 80% over the watershed 1996 Freedom to Farm Act.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby