Citing insufficient support, bankruptcies, crop-dumping by the US, and abandoning Mexican food sovereignty in USMCA negotiations, farmers say the government’s ties to big business has pushed them to this national action.
Agro-Industrial crops are grown for export while heavily subsidized imports from the US destroy corn and basic grain production. Has the government decided to sacrifice Mexican agriculture to save free trade?
Farmers will seek to prevent the transit of heavily subsidized grains imported from the US & denounced the concentration of the food market by a small number of transnational corporations.
Returning to the Mesoamerican milpa agricutlural system could revitalize agriculture, while defending Mexicans and Mexico from a tangled, global necro-politics.
Mexican corn producers have been devastated by low prices resulting from the dumping of heavily subsidized corn from the US.
The Fourth Transformation promised food self-sufficiency for Mexico and to rescue agriculture, but heavily-subsidized US imports have never been higher, while farmers go bankrupt and the crisis reaches intolerable levels.
With a crippling national farmers strike only one bad meeting away, the government’s disregard for Mexico’s agricultural crisis has a surprising face: its Secretary of Agriculture.
Producers in the Bajío region report they have at least 1.5 million tons of corn unsold, while in Zacatecas, 80% of bean producers cannot sell their harvest.
Campesinos, who shut down border crossings and major highways twice last year and face ruin due to the dumping of US crops, believe the government is sacrificing Mexican agriculture in order to secure a USMCA deal.
