Biofuels FTAs menace CentAm ag
Biofuels FTAs Menace CentAm Ag
Guatemala, Jul 24 2007 (Prensa Latina) — The future of Central American agriculture is threatened by developed countries’ demand for biofuels and US-sponsored free trade agreements.
Experts at the seminar "Farm Economy and Emerging Rural Dynamics"
discuss the dangers of free trade accords for agriculture and the use of food to produce fuel.
Researcher Eduardo Baumeister said agrarian exports have doubled for the last 15 years but imports soared fourfold, which had a negative impact on medium and small producers.
The result for rural areas has been extreme poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and massive overseas emigration to the United States, said Baumeister.
Mexican Victor Suarez called the alleged benefits of NAFTA a mirage, since such agreements just meet US companies’ commercial interests.
In 12 years Mexico lost two million jobs in rural areas and local food production was dismantled while imported items pushed up food prices. Suarez said this will happen to other Latin American countries with CAFTA-DR.
The above panoramic is worsened by current demands for biofuels in the US and Europe, because the greed of landowners and transnational companies have altered the grain market and agricultural production systems.
Massive sales of basic grains sever surplus production, raise prices for consumers and worsen hunger and malnutrition in rural areas, traditionally the poorest.
