The Impact of Globalization on Food Security and Sovereignty: An Examination of Maize in Mexico

Kailie Leggett

CSS 493 Carlos Munoz Brenes

5/7/2015

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed on January 1, 1994, Mexico had a geography-based comparative advantage for supplying off season fruits and vegetable to the seemingly endless demand of United States and Canadian markets (Wise, 2009). The liberalization of agricultural trade agreements was meant to promote the flow of seasonal fruits and vegetables to these northern hemisphere countries in return for staple crops and meats to Mexico. However, unlike the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements that treat farm subsidies as one of the three pillars of trade-distorting agricultural protection, the other two being export subsidies and tariffs, NAFTA failed to regulate farm subsidies (Wise, 2009). This lack of regulation on highly subsidized, highly mechanized farming operations quickly produced negative consequences on the Mexican market. The US farm bill subsidizes U.S crops by billions of dollars (Wise, 2009). This allows farmers to sell corn at a price below the price of production (known as dumping). The subsidization of corn in the US has led farmers to plant more corn than the domestic market can absorb. This has led to an increase in exports to foreign markets. With the elimination of tariffs and quotas (specifically targeted to protect against these price distorting practices), Mexico became a perfect market for U.S. corn (Wise, 2009). Due to these U.S. subsidies Mexican farmers cannot compete with the price of their own maize against U.S. corn; on average Mexican farmers lost $99 per hectare per year as a direct result of this free-trade agreement (Wise, 2009). This loss translates to a $6.6 billion loss to the maize industry nationwide (Wise, 2009). By interrogating the Global Capitalist Approach to globalization this paper will address how the dumping of U.S grown corn on the Mexican maize market has impacted the countrys culture, economic development, and the environment by weakening access to culturally appropriated food through lack of incentives.Free trade agreements, such as NAFTA, promote a global capitalist approach and are promoted by advocates of that epistemology, specifically through transnational practices. This addresses the relationship in which nations develop with one another through economic, political, and cultural ideology (Sklair, 1999). Transnational corporations lead economic practice, capitalist class systems, and political policies that drive the culture-ideology of consumerism across global systems. Therefore the global business elite can shape global policies, which in turn shape social movements and cultural ideology (Sklair, 1999). This approach to understanding globalization lacks any recognition of the cultural or societal ramifications, concentrating mostly on profit and ultimately incentivizing culturally insensitive behavior, such with maize in Mexico. Maize is historically and culturally important to the people who live in Mexico. The Zapotec of Oaxaca, a southern Mexican state, historically relied heavily on the caloric content of maize, be it consumed in the form of yht zaa (tortillas made from sweet corn) or in the case of crop failure yht yhla (tortillas made from maize dough and banana dough mix) (Gonzlez, 2001). Different parts of maize plants were also utilized at times constructing roofs from the shoots, leaves, and husks (Parsons, 1970). The people of Mexico today still value maize for nutrition above other substitutes (Ackerman, Wise, Gallagher, Ney, & Flores, 2003). As a subsistence crop, Mexico is unique in that the majority of maize grown in the country is used for consumption, not as livestock feed, and accounts for a large portion of daily energy and protein intake (Ackerman et. al, 2003).Beyond tangible benefits, maize cultivation and preparation created as sense of community amongst villagers, be it women keeping company while grinding maize by hand or in later years at the mechanical mill (Parsons, 1970). Farmers worked together to keep crops safe from pests, wildlife, and preformed rituals to appease the wrath of deities expressed through natural disaster (Parsons, 1970). Maize is also a common decoration in shrines and altars as well as an important part of rituals, such as the ones surrounding the arrangement of a marriage or casting seeds to receive divination. Maize used as a decoration in shrines, with seed corn hanging from the roof of the altars (Parsons, 1970). In the politically, economically, and culturally contentious contemporary Mexican environment, maizes current cultural importance is told through the Zapatista movement as a podium to fight against global forces. The Zapatista movement became the public face of the fight against globalization on the day NAFTA was enacted by staging large protest in Mexicos southern most region Chiapas (Brandt, 2014). Maize production remains a very important part of life for farmers in Zapatista communities, who wish to fight against being dependent on a global economy and feel that having successful maize crops is part of their political struggle for anatomy (Brandt, 2014). This is expressed in murals in cities where Zapatistas reside such as one in Oventik where a inside each one of the corn kernels is a face wearing a characteristic Zapatista ski mask or revolutionaries yielding corn stalks like weapons (Brandt, 2014). The corn dumping taking place under U.S subsidized farming is directly spurring this movement by redefining efficiency for Mexican policy makers. These policy makers feel that since the country is now supplied on corn, small-scale corn farmers would be better utilized in maquiladora (factory) labor, whose labor conditions are still unregulated by the North American Agreement of Labor Cooperation (NAALC), under NAFTA (Brandt, 2014). This therefore disrupts the traditional culture associated with small-scale agriculture and forces participation in a globally dependent food system. The Zapatistas do not stand alone in their criticism in NAFTA and its impact on economic development. Despite proponents arguments that NAFTA would raise the standard of living in Mexico and raise the number of high paying jobs in the U.S, quite the opposite has shown true. Although, certain regions of Mexico, primarily the Northern ones, and certain sectors, specifically those which adhere to large scale industrial agricultural practices have benefited from NAFTA this only accounts for 10% of people. Farmers in the mountainous southern states, (which mountains do not make well for commercial agricultural operations), have experienced a 10% decrease in labor earnings for these smaller rural states. In addition an estimated 1.5 million Mexican farmers have left the farming sector since 1994, pursuing non-farm employment as supplementary income (Wise, 2007). This loss of income has also promoted environmentally unsustainable behavior to make up for the loss of wages. This could either happen through abandonment of traditional farming practices, with low inputs and high diversity, as found on the milpa for large scale large-scale agriculture methods associated with specialized monoculture crops that require extensive irrigation and tilling and rely heavily on inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. This leads to an increase in soil erosion, water pollution, and decreased soil fertility (Ackerman et. al, 2003). Furthermore, many farmers seeking extra profit off the farm have been contracted to harvest wood for construction and fuel. This logging is primarily illegal and leads to increased deforestation (Wise, 2007). The Zapatistas and environmental advocates foresaw many of these problems.Mitigation of these problems was to be addressed by the creation of The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) that oversees the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The CEC is headed by a Secretariat who oversees Submissions on Enforcement Matters (SEM). The SEM process allows citizens and NGOs the ability to submit written assertions that a Party in NAFTA is failing in its environmental duties. If the Secretariat determines the submission meet procedural requirements, the CEC then will contact the offending Party. Depending on the Partys response a factual record may be developed. As of 2005, the Secretariat had received 82 citizen submissions but only 18 resulted in a factual record filed. This process was expected to generate more submissions, but the arduous procedural process has left many people frustrated with the process (Welts, 2013). Additionally, of the 18 that have produced a factual record, 11 cite environmental problems in Mexico (CEC.org, 2015).Sustainable economic development and sustainable environmental practices do not exist separately of each other. In the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Developments Brundtland Report (1987) it is noted that, economics and ecology must be completely integrated in decision-making processes, not just to protect the environment, but also promote development. Therefore, promoting unsustainable agricultural practices that lead to environmental degradation hurt economic development (WCED, 1987). When, heavily subsidized corn crops from the United States do not provide economic incentives for farmers to keep using traditional methods pertaining to agriculture, farmers may turn to environmentally damaging practices such as commercial farming with high chemical and resource inputs or illegal logging. By not incentivizing and overall disregarding the importance of traditional farming methods and traditional ways of living, economic development is stalled as people become more dependent on a world economy. Driven by a failed idea of capitalism, as implemented by corn dumping, people are separated from their culturally significant food, relating back to a larger idea of food sovereignty, and the right to culturally appropriate food (Clapp, 2014). The reality is that the world is participating in a global economy. The WTO is promoting even more free trade agreements every day, and nearly every country on the earth is a participant in at least one free trade agreement scheme. Facilitating economic trade between countries does improve the GDP of the countries involved. The problem arises when the two countries trading with each other do not have similar agricultural policy programs. Food is not a commodity that should be at the whim of global market forces. People have the right to both food security and sovereignty, not subject to large corporations dictating how food should be produced and marketed. It is clear when studying movements such as the one headed by the Zapatista how important culture and history is to understanding the proximate causes and consequences of global economic policy. Maize is more than just a commodity to be bought and sold. In Mexico maize is not only a food but also representative of life, culture and the divine. This subsistence crop sustains both life and lifestyle of the Mexican people and many of their cultural practices. So, in undercutting the domestic production of maize, the dumping of U.S. subsidized corn threatens more than the Mexican economy alone, which leads to increased political conflict. This recognition of culture in food systems is important to remember as the world economy continues liberalize trade markets.

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