Nafta

Is NAFTA the cause of the crisis in our Mexican Agriculture? From this question, I develop an analysis of the factors that have led our Agriculture to its current situation.

By analyzing the data, a review of our history and our Agriculture compared with that of other nations, I assess whether the assumptions, and thesis, of who hold that NAFTA must be renegotiate to go better in the futureare sustained.

After answering key questions such as whether the NAFTA has been disadvantageous to our country, if the problem is the lack of subsidies or whether is NAFTA the cause of increased migration from rural to urban populations, I provide a diagnosis that explains - in a documented way - what are the structural factors that impede the agriculture to have high levels of economic andsocial development.

Finally, I offer a proposal for a Comprehensive Policy for the Promotion of Productivity, which defines 11 specific actions that if promoted by the Mexican government can trigger the growth of our agriculture.

In the spirit of contributing in a serious and responsible development of our country, I hope that this proposal will help raise the level of debate and serve as astarting point to discuss seriously about how to help our country and peasants.

The discussion of the effects of NAFTA on our Agriculture demands a strict interpretation highlighting the real causes of the problem and suggesting realistic solutions. Unfortunately, the debate has been dominated by ideological dogmas and political interests whose purpose is winning elections or get benefices and inthis sense it is significant that some politicians that once approved the Agreement in Congress today do the harshest critics of all.

But NAFTA has only spark off agricultural sector crisis already in problems. The stagnancy relating to the sector doesn’t emerge with the Agreement but it was highlighted by it, showing the dimensions of the challenge of our agriculture. For this reason is thatone discussion limited to the terms of the trade is totally inadequate and not very useful to clarify the real problems of rural Mexico.

In an effort to contribute to the analysis of the problem, I offer this proposal, which respond primarily a key question: NAFTA has actually been the source of the crisis of our Agriculture as it is proclaimed today? I think not and instead I hold as centralthesis that there are structural conditions that have severely damaged the productivity. Because, questioning this or that policy or government decision, as we have heard often, neither clarifies the problem nor allows designing viable solutions inside the possibilities of our economy.

II. ASSUMPTIONS AND THESIS PROPOSED BY WHOM WANT NAFTA TO RENEGOTIATE

Among the underlying assumptions to theposition of whom proposed renegotiate NAFTA, not always expressed openly, are the following:

1. They understand the competition and globalization as optional and even as calamities that have to be avoided, implicitly denying that competition is a source of development.
This approach also ignores, in fact, necessary and inevitable interdependence between countries, even in the food sector, andtrade advantages for the consumer, who have access to a greater diversity and quality of goods and lower prices, but also for companies, which get raw materials and inputs more cheaply increasing this way their their competitiveness.

Leaving aside that low prices eventually work their way despite tariff and non-tariff barriers that oppose to them, for example the fayuca that has invaded ourmarket, long before trade liberalization. Furthermore, experience tells us that countries that have followed this path end up collapsing, as happened with the Soviet Union, defeated economically for cancelling the competition as a spur to technological development and efficiency improvement.

On the contrary, experience shows that countries that have managed an intelligent and controlled...