Posted on 01/02/2008 7:53:08 AM PST by 1rudeboy
U.S., Mexico tout new growth, but some farmers feel squeezed out
For South Texas corn farmer Brian Jones, the lifting of the last agricultural tariffs under NAFTA on Tuesday could make for a more profitable new year.
"It has helped us just because of the extra outlet for sales," said Jones, a fourth-generation farmer. "It's just grown our market."
But for Carrizo Springs farmer Bruce Frasier, who grows vegetables in the winter garden region of the state, the North American Free Trade Agreement has not been kind.
For him, the most hotly contested trade agreement in American history has made it unprofitable to grow cabbage and spinach.
"It's not fun to do it at cost, at best," said Frasier, who stopped growing the winter vegetables two years ago because he no longer could compete with Mexican growers.
Fourteen years after NAFTA began, issues remain, such as whether to allow Mexican trucks to haul cargo over U.S. roads. But the deal on tariffs is done.
When the free trade agreement took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, tariffs on some agricultural products immediately disappeared, making it cheaper to import those goods from Mexico, and vice versa.
But tariffs on certain other products were phased out in an effort to ease the transition.
Those transition periods ended Tuesday when the U.S. eliminated duties on all Mexican peanuts, frozen concentrated orange juice and winter vegetables such as cabbage.
At the same time, Mexico eliminated tariffs on imports of dry beans, milk powder and corn, one of its most economically and culturally sensitive products.
That tariff elimination could boost U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico, which already increased by $7.3 billion between 1993 and 2006. During the same time period, Mexico's agricultural exports to the U.S. increased by $6.7 billion.
Some of those exports were from Texas, which shipped more grain and beef to Mexico, for example.
"As a net overall gain, NAFTA has clearly been an advantage for Texas producers," said Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall. "Clearly we have some geographical advantages with regards to Mexico. We have a shared culture, in many ways."
"It's just like anything else. When there's more people wanting to buy it, that increases demand and when demand increases, your price increases," said Jones, who also raises cotton and grain sorghum in Edcouch, northeast of McAllen.
He said his earnings have increased since NAFTA launched but so have his expenses on fuel, fertilizer and other essentials.
As tariffs fell on winter vegetables over the last few years, Frasier's Dixondale Farms began to concentrate on cantaloupes and onion transplants, which give growers a head start on their onions.
Since NAFTA went into effect, he's reduced his farm size.
"I've scaled down considerably," said Frasier, whose family has been farming in the region since 1913. "I probably have cut back 25 percent on my production."
Despite NAFTA's critics, the U.S. and Mexican governments tout the deal's benefits.
"NAFTA has been a success," said U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. "NAFTA has worked for all three countries."
U.S. exports to its NAFTA partners of Canada and Mexico are up, Gutierrez said during a recent swing through Houston to promote more such trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
"The free trade agreement has allowed us to come into this market," said Mexico's agriculture minister, Alberto Cárdenas Jiménez, who visited Houston in October during the Produce Marketing Association's convention, where Mexican agribusinesses showcased their avocados, papaya and other fruits and vegetables. "Mexico has been working for the last few years on programs to increase productivity."
"We are going to be at a complete disadvantage," said Carlos Gonzalez, director of the Centro Universitario de Apoyo Tecnológico Empresarial, a university program that works with business owners including farmers in the state of San Luis Potosi.
Alejandro Nadal, an economist with the Colegio de Mexico, agreed, saying the trade pact only benefited Mexico's large commercial farms and not its campesinos, farmworkers who live hand-to-mouth. Fully implemented, the agreement doesn't provide any emergency safeguards to help the agricultural sector, he said.
"We can always pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe," he said. "That's the only recourse."
I bet Mexico isnt reducing their tarriffs on US products.
NAFTA should be abrogated. Its a bad deal, and has harmed more than its helped.
With 9/11 and other global events, 20th Century globalist free-trade utopia is nothing but fantasy
We should celebrate this NAFTA milestone by outsourcing corporate management and financial sector jobs to Mexico.
Someone must not have told all of the people fleeing Mexico about the great jobs that NAFTA has generated down there. I mean, they can make $1.46 an hour!
How much do you want to bet?
Proving once again that protectionists really don’t give a damn about jobs, period.
I’m touched by your concern for Mexicans.
I guess the illegals didn't hear Ross Perot. He said NAFTA would cause the US to rapidly lose jobs.
If our manufacturing can be done more cheaply in Mexico, I see no reason why financial sector jobs and corporate management jobs should stay in America. I don’t see why management jobs should be “protected” while the average guy’s job isn’t.
Set whining volume to 5.
You should start up a company to do that. Let us know when you make your first million.
Giant sucking sound as we race to the bottom, if I recall. I did hear a sucking sound, though, it was American welfare queen-swine lining up at the trough of ag. subsidies.
Protectionism is Patriotism in defense and in trade.
In trade? Really? So, curbing or discouraging economic liberty and providing subsidy to domestic industry at the tax-payer's expense is patriotic? Well, it's some kind of ____otic but you're not on the right track.
Patriotism is getting government off the backs of our producers so that they can produce. Protectionism (generally) is allowing a government bureaucrat to choose favorites.
--and those of us working in the free market have to protect the protectionists, even while paying bills for the Defense Dept.
Protectionists can say they're patriotic all they want, but the burden of supporting them harms the nation.
Gee, another NAFTA = utopia thread. You should be advising us to dump dollars for Euros.
Snook must have kicked it up to 10 with his "patriotic" shtick. Costa Rica has no army. Protectionists want to raise taxes on Costa Rican coffee, bananas and chocolate to protect American suppliers so America will be prepared to fight off a sneak attack by Costa Rican traffic cops.
Jeesh!
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