According to Randall Pinkston's CBS Evening News report, up to 2
million Mexican farmworkers lost their jobs over the past 10 years due
to NAFTA. Most of the jobs were in Mexico's cornfields, farms which
were unable to compete with giant U.S. agribusiness corporations, which
use gene-spliced corn to cut disease losses, tax subsidies (including
the billions in ethanol tax credits) and modern machinery to undersell
Mexican corn. These out of work farmers become illegal border
crossers, looking for work in the States.

Talk about a vicious circle, U.S. agribusiness wipes out Mexican farm
jobs, now out-of-work unskilled Mexicans go north and undersell their
American counterparts for laborer jobs.

The Federal government looks
the other way for the most part, as American employers don't pay the
Mexicans the minimum wage or overtime, because the Mexicans can't
complain to the US Department of Labor, which has orders to turn them
over to the INS. Big business profits, crooked employers who underpay
Mexicans profit, while low-skilled American workers find their jobs
vanishing, outsourced to undocumented underpaid workers at home or
outsourced to cheap labor countries abroad.

Hiring a thousand more Board Patrol agents won't fix the problem,
caused by corrupt Beltway politicians who knew exactly what the effect
of NAFTA would be: loss of millions of American jobholders as a
byproduct of fat cat politically connected business operators getting
even richer with the lower priced labor NAFTA created.
-----

Is NAFTA Good For Mexico's Farmers?
Contepec, Mexico, July 1, 2006
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/01/eveningnews/printable1773839.shtml

Mexican farmers said that entire towns are emptying because thousands
of small farms have gone out of business. As many as 2 million farm
workers have lost their jobs - the vast majority headed north across
the U.S. border looking for better pay.

FAST FACTS:
A U.S. corn grower receives an average annual subsidy of $20,000 a
year. The Mexican government gives their farmers just $100.


(CBS) In the heart of Mexico's breadbasket - where plowing the land
is still done the old fashioned way - farmers like Tirso Alvares
Correa worry about their corn crops, reports CBS News correspondent
Randall Pinkston.

Corn from abroad is taking a toll on us, he says. We can't sell our
corn anymore.

Where are those products coming from?

Up North.

The United States and Canada have been selling tons of corn in Mexico
for over a decade, thanks to NAFTA - the North American Free Trade
Agreement. It eliminated tariffs on most agricultural trade and was
supposed to be a win-win for the United States and Mexico.

For Alvares Correa, NAFTA has been a disaster. While the trade
agreement opened up U.S. markets to Mexican corn farmers, they haven't
been able to sell any corn in America.

Meanwhile, American farmers have flooded Mexico with cheap corn thanks
to generous U.S. government subsidies - subsidies left unchecked by
NAFTA. A U.S. corn grower receives an average annual subsidy of $20,000
a year. The Mexican government gives their farmers just $100.

Farmers said that entire towns are emptying because thousands of small
farms have gone out of business. As many as 2 million farm workers have
lost their jobs - the vast majority headed north across the U.S.
border looking for better pay.

No one questions that Mexico's small corn farmers are hurting - due
in large part to the impact of NAFTA. But supporters of the free trade
agreement say what's happening here is just part of the story.

Crops such as avocados are the other part. They're a growth crop that
- unlike Mexican corn - has helped farmers benefit from NAFTA.

"In 1997, the total volume that went into the U.S. was 6,500 tons (of
avocados)," says Carlos Illsley, an avacado farmer. "This year, we
think we should be closing around 100,000."

Avocado production in Mexico means jobs - not only in the orchards
- but for truck drivers, packers and inspectors.

"NAFTA just opened that door, which made a significant difference for
the industry," says Illsley.

But it's unlikely that avocados can be the solution for most
beleaguered corn farmers. Startup costs are steep and their land may
not be suitable.

So millions of corn growers have no choice but to grind their crop to a
pulp and feed it to cows.

In two years NAFTA will lift the last limits on U.S. corn exports,
which could put even more farmers out of business - and trigger a new
wave of migrants headed north across the U.S. border.

Free trade has been a disaster for us, says Tirso Alvares Correa. But
his worst fear is that soon there won't be anyone left to work the land
that has been in his family for generations.