Angelica Enciso L.
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 22, 2024, p. 12
Thirty years after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force, which later gave way to multiple bilateral agreements in the world, the impact it left on the Mexican countryside was the concentration of land, which triggered migration, extractivism and drives the consumption of food
Ultra-processed foods that led to obesity and diabetes problems, the analysis points out 30 years of NAFTA, a method to monopolize the worldproduced by Grain and Bilaterals.org.
NAFTA, now T-MEC, came into force after the counter-reform to constitutional article 27, which promoted the hoarding and privatization of the lands of indigenous peoples as well as all collective peasant possessions, the document states. To this end, the registration of parcels and their common-use lands was forced, seeking that the ejidos and communities were titled individually and broke de facto the collectivity or communality of their lands, he indicates.
With the agreement, migration skyrocketed due to the expulsion of people from their communities and territories, The growing violence fueled unregulated land grabbing, contributed to the migration wave and migrants ended up in the semi-slave labor system in the United States
he points out.
The treaty generated impunity in unfair imports, obeying the interests of the corporations of the countries that set the rules of the game, and in Mexico corn imports were promoted, despite being a basic product for feeding the population and despite all the asymmetries in productivity and subsidies
.
In addition to this, he indicates, the installation of the foreign food industry pushed the immediate promotion of direct investment, with a world of processed foods that changed consumption patterns
and there was an increase in monocultures, which reaffirmed the so-called green revolution
which seeks the dependence of farmers on companies and government programs.
The public policies established by this treaty required the standardization of production methods. The promotion of companies that devastate the environment without consideration has led to sacrifice zones of enormous devastation, extreme toxic contamination and invasion of territories with a view to extracting raw materials.
and dispute resolution mechanisms They have also allowed mining to grow and settle without consideration.
refers.
NAFTA is 30 years old and since it came into force, the world has begun a unusual stage of homogenization of the terms of reference of its international relations, and the so-called formal democracy was further eroded.
he points out.
