When I lived in Mexico City during the 1990s, I enjoyed leaving the city on weekends to escape the smog and replenish my lungs.
Sometimes I would drive to the mountains in Hidalgo, Morelos or Michoacan. Other times, I would head for Querataro or Guanajuato, three hours north of the capital.
Once out of the city, I would begin to see small, 40-acre farms of corn, beans or other staple crops. In idyllic scenes straight out of the 1800s, farmers would plod along rows of tilled dirt firmly strapped behind a mule and a plow.
This traditional farming method reminded me of the stories that my grandfather told me of his youth on his family's farm in northern New Mexico. Many of the farms I saw throughout Mexico were parts of communal land grants known as "ejidos." Others were farms owned by gentlemen farmers who would leave the city on weekends to enjoy the rural life.
I was making these trips through Mexico's countryside at the time that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was being negotiated and implemented between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
NAFTA was structured as an agreement to create a North American free trade bloc by lowering tariffs and other barriers of trade among the three partners.
Because certain sectors were vulnerable or not ready to compete in an open market, they were given longer periods under the agreement by which tariffs and barriers would be phased out.
During the course of the NAFTA negotiations, it was determined that the agricultural sector was a particularly sensitive sector in all three countries. The Mexican government, realizing the inability of most of its farming concerns to compete with corporate agricultural companies, pushed for a 15-year barrier phase-out period for its staple crops such as corn and beans - the longest of any sector under NAFTA.
The logic was that Mexican farmers could use this extended period of protectionism to gradually improve their methods and operations in order to compete against foreign companies.
When this extended phaseout on agriculture was implemented, along with the rest of NAFTA on Jan. 1, 1994, I couldn't help but wonder if 15 or even 30 years would be enough time for Mexican farmers to be able to modernize enough to compete against global agricultural leaders such as Archer Daniels Midland.
On Jan. 1, 2008, the phaseout period on agricultural products under NAFTA was completed. Years before this date, it was painfully obvious that major sectors in the Mexican agricultural industry were not ready to compete. With the loss of protectionism in their sectors, the doom-anddread attitude long felt by Mexican corn, bean and dairy producers has become a reality.
Many people can point a finger at Mexican farmers and claim that they had a decade and a half to prepare themselves, but precious time was squandered and little was done to modernize operations. It also could be argued that the Mexican government signed on for the 15-year phase-out period, and an agreement is an agreement.
However, given the circumstances presented to Mexico's agricultural sector since the implementation of NAFTA, it was inevitable that certain sectors would arrive at 2008 still unprepared. In most studies I have read pertaining to NAFTA, Mexico's agricultural sector has been notoriously absent in sharing in the benefits of the agreement.
The struggle of the Mexican farmer to make a living started long before NAFTA was signed, and this has resulted in the migration of millions of rural residents who have swelled the population of Mexico's metropolitan areas in search of better opportunities.
A significant portion of Mexico's farming population has migrated to the United States - both legally and illegally - in order to make ends meet.
Although federal agricultural programs exist in Mexico, it is still difficult for the average farmer to access badly needed credit to bring machinery and new technology into farming operations. Even today, it is not unusual to see farmers plowing with animals and harvesting by hand.
Mexico's agricultural situation illustrates how important it is for countries to carefully negotiate trade agreements and to consider how to deal with sectors that are vulnerable. Protectionism creates inefficiencies, decreases quality and increases the costs of goods/services to consumers.
If protection is offered over a period of time to a vulnerable sector, both the government and the private sector must work together to optimally use the protection period to become competitive.
The $64,000 question is: What happens now to Mexican farmers in vulnerable sectors?
As more foreign companies enter Mexico's agricultural markets, the nation could see a consolidation of farming land by the big agricultural corporations, as occurred in the United States.
Producing in huge volumes on large tracts of land could result in economies of scale. With coordination and a strategic plan, many of Mexico's communal landholders could be in a position to partner with foreign companies to more efficiently farm large land areas using modern machinery and methods.
I have seen first20
hand the success that collective Mennonite and Mormon farming communities have had in Mexico. This could serve as an example for other farms.
As farming continues to go corporate throughout the world, the farmer as a romantic figure in Mexico could be in the same danger of disappearing, as is happening in the United States.
Fewer Americans see future opportunities in farming, and the median age of the average American farmer is rising. Whether they want to or not, Mexican farmers are now competing against the world.
Jerry Pacheco is executive director of
the International Business
Accelerator, a nonprofit trade counseling program. He can be reached
at 505-589-2200, Ext. 17, or atAlbuquerque Journal
