Re: Henwood: Collapse in Cancun

["dmschanoes" <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1. Prior to NAFTA, from 1986-1988, subsidized producer support as a percent
of gross farm receipts in Mexico measured zero.  For the 2000-2002 period
they measured 22% as the govt. has sought to cushion the blow of US inputs
of corn, chickens, etc.  That the distribution is skewed towards the more
well to do is of course expected. Market price support constitutes almost
70% of this subsidy. (OECD ---Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries:
Monitoring and Evaluation 2003, Highlights, p.9,44) That the more well to do
scream the loudest about import competition is expected, although it's more
accurate to say that those complaints are heard better than those of the
small, individual producers.

2. We are not talking about the "ruining of Mexican agriculture" as a thing
in itself, but a relationship, where the competitive pressure of US imports
is used to force the smaller, poorer, individual, 'petty,' producers off the
land to the benefit of the larger, more capital intensive agricultural
owners, who in turn, will moan about the impact of US imports. The Mexican
govt has since 1994, enacted several pieces of legislation change the rights
of cultivators to land and perpetual ownership of their estates, if I
remember correctly.

3. According to UN FAO figures, gross agricultural output in Mexico grew 20%
in the period 1989-1994, but only 7.8% 1995-2000.
Cereal ouput grew 23.8% in the former period but only 2.7% in the latter.
Total foodstuffs grew 21% vs 12.9%.  Livestock production increased 25.7% in
the earlier period vs. 14.7% in the latter.

4.  I am not arguing for the national bourgeois planting program as an
alternative with my criticism of NAFTA. Rather I oppose the myths of "free
trade" and "the benefits" of advanced capitalism's inputs to developing
agricultural, not on their technical but on their social basis.  The task is
not the choice "between cancer and polio," or the two poisons of capital's
manifestations.  Similarly, the struggle is not to restore the individual
proprietors to the land at the same level of subsistence agriculture that
has existed.  It is  A: recognizing what the impact/meaning/ and drive
behind "trade liberalization" really is-- the expropriation of land and
labor for the benefit of the class of owners at the expense of the class(es)
of producers and thereby opposing it.

dms



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