NAFTA and US Farmers—20 Years Later

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/25-3


A Spanish version of this commentary originally appeared in La Jornada.

One of the clearest stories from the NAFTA experience has been the devastation wreaked on the Mexican countryside by dramatic increases in imports of cheap U.S. corn. But while Mexican farmers, especially small-scale farmers, undoubtedly lost from the deal, that doesn’t mean that U.S. farmers have won. Prices for agricultural goods have been on a roller coaster of extreme price volatility caused by unfair agriculture policies, recklessly unregulated speculation on commodity markets, and increasing droughts and other climate chaos. Each time prices took their terrifying ride back down, more small- and medium-scale farmers were forced into bankruptcy while concentration of land ownership, and agricultural production, grew.

It’s hard to separate the impacts of NAFTA from another big change in U.S. farm policy: the 1996 Farm Bill, which set in place a shift from supply management and regulated markets to an accelerated policy of “get big or get out.” Farmers were encouraged to increase production with the promise of expanded export markets—including to Mexico. But almost immediately, the failure of this policy was evident as commodity prices dropped like a stone, and Congress turned to “emergency” payments, later codified as direct payment farm subsidies, to clean up the mess and keep rural economies afloat.

Then, as new demand for biofuels increased the demand for corn, and investors turned from failing mortgage markets to speculate on grains, energy and other commodities, prices soared. It wasn’t only the prices of farm goods that rose, however, but also prices of land, fuel, fertilizers and other petrochemical based agrochemicals. Net farm incomes were much more erratic.

In many ways, the family farmers who had been the backbone of rural economies really did either get big or get out, leaving a sector marked by inequality and corporate concentration. Over the last 20 years, there has been a marked shift in the size of U.S. farms, with the number of very small farms and very large farms increasing dramatically. The increase in the number of small farms is due to several factors, including urban people returning to the land (almost all are reliant on off-farm jobs to support themselves) and the growth in specialty crops for local farmers markets. The number of farms in the middle, those that are small but commercially viable on their own, dropped by 40 percent, from half of total farms in 1982 to less than a third in 2007.

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

- The small and medium-sized farmers left the business, and the corporations got their business and their land on the cheap. What a coincidence.....

[xchrom]

2. it was 'unexpected' -- who could've known'!11 nt

[hootinholler]

3. The thing that gets me

is they still vote R.

[Wilms]

4. The thing that gets me

is they still vote Clinton.

[CanSocDem]

5. Indeed! (eom)

[Laelth]

10. That's the sad truth.

Clinton created this volatility with this turd of a law:The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

That thing should be repealed in its entirety.

-Laelth

[nolabels]

11. 20 years, 8 years with an ambiguous Obama Potus and a lot triangulation of information

Will probably give a better idea of what kind of hucksters they have actually been

No doubt not as bad as * but not the fantastic sell job it once was

[Whisp]

14. Yes. And some want More of that from Hillary in 2016.

my gawd.

[DeSwiss]

6. Which reminds me.....

''I think Rob Ford is awesome. He finally put to bed the notion that humans are capable of choosing their own leaders. I'm prepared to allow a mathematical algorithm to select leaders at random from the phone book now. If you look at the past 100 years (including the past 5) it cannot be any worse than what we have selected for ourselves.''

~PaleoEmoProg

[hootinholler]

7. Personally

I prefer Emo Phillips.

[Larry Ogg]

12. The working class will never choose their leaders "for real"...

That is until enough people wakeup and realize that the system in which we supposedly choose our leaders is nothing more than a ruling class scam in which, the ruling class decides who we vote for and who we don't.

Over the years, they have taken over the main stream media, and pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the campaign coffers of both political parties. And in exchange for their contributions of ill-gotten gain, the working class has elected a bunch of narcissistic puppets that go out of their way to pass laws that legalize even further, the predatory behavior of rich psychopaths.

And still, the majority of American workers think that if they keep on voting for one of these two predator owned political parties that things will get better.

And as a psychopath known as Adolph Hitler once said... "What luck for rulers that men do not think".

[bvar22]

8. Ross was right!

....but Bill was Smoooooth!

Sorry, Virginia,
but there in no such thing as "Free Trade".
There is no such thing as "Free Markets",
and there certainly is no such thing as a benevolent "Invisible Hand"
that reaches down from heaven and protects the little people when "the market makes mistakes."
The RICH made that shit up and used smooth talking politicians to sell their scam
to a gullible America.



[font color=white].........................[/font][font size=4]The Graven Image[/font]

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. Clinton and Gore both pushed this piece of shit, hard. That's the danger of this

red team - blue team absolutism, it subjects us to very bad republican ideas that are dressed up as "bipartisan".

[bvar22]

16. I couldn't agree more.

..and when the Corporate Media works with "them" by branding Hillary and Obama
as the "Liberal" edge of the Democratic Party,
pretty much everyone to the Left of Reagan is pushed Off-the-Stage,
and the Big Game becomes the Center Right vs the Far Right.


You can see that being played out right here.

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. Every day.

The same names, the same tactics, the same results.

I just took a week off and I think it's time for another, or several. Besides, I have shit to do and there is at least some chance that what we do will make an actual difference.

[Laelth]

9. The commodity markets need to be re-regulated.

NAFTA stinks, for a whole host of reasons, but our hero, Bill Clinton, signed a law that created the volatility and speculation that is, as usual, making a few people very rich while impoverishing millions (if not billions) of people.

It was this turd of a law that did it: The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

That thing should be repealed in its entirety.

-Laelth

[Quantess]

15. K & R