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WORD COUNT
677
DECEMBER 5, 2007
PERU FREE TRADE
AGREEMENT A DISASTER FOR FARMERS EVERYWHERE – by Ben Burkett
American anxiety
about our food system is at an all-time high. With every report of
tainted or poisonous foreign food imports or new E. coli recall,
consumer demand grows for locally produced, source-verified products. As
a family farmer who grows collard greens, okra, watermelon, and squash
and has struggled for years trying to obtain a fair price for my crops,
I welcome wholeheartedly this phenomenon. However, our Congress members
seem to be oblivious to the livelihoods of family farmers and the wishes
of consumers as they continue to pass more disastrous free trade
agreements. Instead of learning from the failed lessons of
the
National American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the House of Representatives passed the
Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in November. The U.S. Senate is looking
to vote on it this month. Farmers and consumers both here and in Peru
will be the big losers. The only winners will be corporate
agribusinesses dumping cheap grain and seeking the cheapest labor and
most lax environmental standards.
As a family farmer
from Mississippi, I actually thought NAFTA might be able to help farmers
like me access new markets. But I quickly found out how wrong I was when
many of the farmers in my cooperative lost our cucumber contracts from
corporations such as Heinz and Vlasic, who chose to buy instead from
Mexico. The Peru FTA simply continues this failed NAFTA-model for
agriculture that destroys local food systems both here and abroad, while
favoring industrial-style, environmentally damaging farm systems. The
United States has historically had an agricultural trade surplus. We are
now verging on becoming a net food importer and already have a $400
million agriculture trade deficit with Peru. Now is not the time to
allow more cheap foreign food that would undercut American family
farmers and ranchers and jeopardizes our food security.
Since the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and NAFTA went into effect, the United States has
lost more than a quarter million independent family farms. Already, the
asparagus industries in California and Washington have been devastated
by the flood of cheap imports from Peru. Processing companies such as
Del Monte and Green Giant have shifted their production to Peru to take
advantage of lower farmland, labor, and environmental compliance costs.
American ranchers will be harmed by the Peru FTA’s failure to include
food safety standards for cattle. Peru’s beef production is growing and
could soon export to the United States, despite a foot-and-mouth disease
problem. Our family farmers in the South are increasingly losing out to
cheap imports from Central and Latin America. Soon, you won’t be able to
find any local produce at your supermarket or restaurants if we continue
passing more free trade agreements!
As harmful as the
Peru FTA will be for American farmers and ranchers, the effects on
Peruvian farmers will be just as devastating. As an African American
farmer, I am particularly concerned about the impact the agreement will
have on the millions of Afro-Peruvian and indigenous farmers. The same
international grain traders who dumped below-cost grain into Mexico
after NAFTA, driving over a million farmers off the land and fueling
illegal migration into the United States, will now do the same in Peru.
Many of those displaced Peruvian corn and rice farmers facing economic
catastrophe will be forced to migrate or grow illicit drug crops to
survive. In July, four million Peruvians took to the streets to voice
opposition to the FTA.
Farmers at home and
abroad need a new direction on trade and agriculture policy that
protects rural livelihoods and promotes food sovereignty. The first step
in that new direction must be rejection of the Peru Free Trade Agreement
and the upcoming agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.
Family farmers want to produce for our families and our local
communities, not export markets. Free trade directly undermines and
weakens renewed consumer demand for local and healthy foods. We have
already outsourced our energy security. Why are we doing the same with
our food security? Food sovereignty, not free trade, needs to be the
foundational basis of our policies if we are to build a more healthful
and just food system.
--
Ben Burkett is a fourth-generation farmer from Petal, Mississippi. He
serves as vice-president of the National Family Farm Coalition and
belongs to the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives and Federation of
Southern Cooperatives. The National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) was
founded in 1986 to serve as a national link for grassroots
organizations working on family farm issues.
www.nffc.net
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