- News
- May 5, 2010
For every contribution of $20 or more, you'll receive a copy of Francis Thicke's new book.
Hogging the Profits
by Francis ThickeFree trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have been touted as a boon for American agriculture. But who really profits? An analysis by two Tufts University researchers makes a strong case that it is multinational corporations that profit, at the expense of farmers, workers and communities.
In their policy brief, the Tufts researchers show how cheap, subsidized US grains and the removal of tariff barriers enabled multinational livestock firms, like the pork giant Smithfield, to move into Mexico and reap large profits on both sides of the border.
With the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, cheap, subsidized corn – and pork produced from the cheap corn — flooded Mexico, undercutting Mexican corn and pork farmers and forcing many of them out of business. An estimated 2.3 million Mexican farmers left agriculture between 1993 and 2008. That provided a cheap labor pool to work in Smithfield pork operations in Mexico. It also sent many desperate Mexican immigrants across the US border in search of work, providing a cheap labor pool for Smithfield meatpacking plants in the US.
Smithfield benefitted from NAFTA in several ways: 1) through tariff-free imports of cheap US grains into Mexico, 2) tariff-free exports of Mexican pork into the US, 3) cheap labor on both sides of the border, and 4) a welcome investment climate for foreign investors in Mexico because of NAFTA.
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/PB10-01HoggingGainsJan10.html
