Why should MOFGA object to CAFTA, the FTAA, NAFTA, and similar international trade agreements?

General Points - What happens to small-scale farmers when barriers to international trade are eliminated?

1. Overall, international trade agreements benefit agribusiness to the detriment of small-scale farmers.
According to the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC): "Current US agriculture policy allows agriculture products to be sold on the international market far below their cost of production which benefits mainly agribusiness corporations and very large farming operations. These policies allow these large players to buy cheap and sell across international borders wherever they can make the most profit, while underselling local farmers both in the U.S. and abroad, and intensifying rates of poverty since family farmers worldwide are unable to compete."

2. Small-scale farmers in the U.S. do not benefit from gaining access to other countries' markets.
Trade agreements are written for business interests, and put the primary focus of discussions on increasing PROFITS for US corporations, and decreasing PRICES for consumers. Agribusinesses can increase profits even while commodity prices decline by dumping cheap products in other countries while continuing to profit from subsidies. This hurts small-scale farmers in other countries, and does not benefit small-scale farmers in the U.S.

3. Small-scale farmers in the U.S. and around the world are hurt by downward price pressures when transnational agribusiness corporations move products freely across countries' borders.
How many times have you heard that local, organic food is "expensive"? Probably many. But are small-scale organic farmers making living wages? No. American consumers and our society are trained by artificially low food prices, set by subsidized agribusiness. According to the NFFC, "more than 40% of net income of agriculture in the U.S. comes from the federal government in the form of direct subsidies, an attempt to make up for low commodity prices." These artificially low prices make it impossible for small-scale American farmers to compete with agribusiness in terms of price - even when food comes long distances from factory farms to supermarkets, with many middlemen taking a cut.

International trade agreements exacerbate this problem worldwide by creating incentives for agribusiness to buy commodities cheaply from farmers in one country and sell them at prices lower than local farmers can afford in another country. U.S. agribusiness can also "dump" cheap products (like soybeans) on other countries. A farmer from Thailand who visited Maine last year asked "How can the U.S. grow soybeans, send them half-way around the world to Thailand, and still sell them in our markets for prices too low for us to compete?"

In Mexico, imports of agricultural products have increased 44% since NAFTA, while food insecurity in the rural sector has increased from 36% in 1992 to 52.4%.

For more general information or analysis of trade agreements and their impact to small-scale farmers, go to "Why We Say No to CAFTA" by the Alliance for Responsible Trade - with agricultural sections written by Dennis Olson of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. It can be found at http://www.art-us.org/docs/cafta304.pdf

Specific CAFTA Issues of Concern - from an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Analysis

1. Protection of Corporate Rights to Enforce Patents of GMO's
CAFTA states that countries participating in CAFTA must adhere to a set of corporate rights to patent genetically modified plants and animals. (Article 15.1.7) This set of corporate rights has allowed such events as Montsanto's prosecution of Percy Schmeiser for having his crop contaminated with GM corn. And, in fact, CAFTA sets out an even more strict set of corporate rights than previous trade agreements, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minnesota.

In addition, CAFTA requires that countries enforce intellectual property protection whether or not they can afford to do so. (Article 15.11.1)

2. Policies Protecting Corporations from Disclosing Safety Information
CAFTA protects developers of agricultural chemicals from having to divulge to the public "undisclosed data concerning the safety or efficacy of a product that was previously approved in another territory" when seeking to market a patented product in a new country. (Article 15.10.1b)

3. Potential Section F Trade Discrimination against NGO's and Fair Trade Organizations
A provision in Chapter 3 of CAFTA states that no country "may allocate any portion of a Tarriff-Rate Quota to producer groups or non-governmental organizations…" According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), this clause forbids governments from giving part of their tariff quotas (as I understand it, these are amounts of a particular commodity that can be traded tariff-free) to traders of commodities such as fair trade coffee. I'm not sure what the real impact of this would be - but the IATP states that it is explicit discrimination against NGO's and Fair Trade Organizations.

These points are from "Analysis of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) Concerning Agriculture" by Steve Suppan of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. It can be found on the internet at www.citizenstrade.org/agriculture.php