The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Times News Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out
  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Other
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
  • Shopping
    • Stores
    • Coupons
    • Daily Double
    • Promotion
    • How It Works
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
    • Joe Giganti
    • Video Game Minute
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Audio and Radio
    • America's Morning News
  • Sports

    KNOTT: Pollin honored as a D.C. treasure

  • Sports

    Jamison lights fire under Wizards

  • Politics

    Uninvited White House guests met Obama in line

  • Sports

    Wife aids Woods after SUV crash

  • National

    Volunteers for drug trials hard to find

  • Business

    Dubai debt crisis rocks U.S., Asia markets

  • World

    Piracy threatens fishermen in Yemen

Monday, September 8, 2003

Mexican corn comes a cropper

Rate this story

Average 0.00
after 0 votes
Login or register to rate this story

  • Font Size -+
  • Print
  • Email
  • Comment
  • Tweet this!
  • Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Click-2-Listen
  • Videos

More Stories

  • Atlantis, crew of 7 back on Earth
  • Uninvited White House guests met Obama in line
  • iPhone lands in Korea
  • Wife aids Woods after SUV crash

By

VALLE DE CHALCO, MEXICO -- Ruben Gomez just rode 18 hours on a cramped bus for a first look at something designed to keep him at home. Inside a cinder-block building in this poor Mexico City suburb, he sees a dozen huge steel tubs filled with corn.

Mr. Gomez, a corn farmer from rural Chiapas state in southeast Mexico, is looking at the newest in a chain of collectively owned tortilla plants and stores called "Nuestro Maiz" -- Our Maize -- that hopes to save an ailing industry by using only Mexican corn and giving profits back to the farmers.

"So many people have had to leave Mexico and look for work in the U.S. Maybe this can keep me on my land."

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement liberalized commerce between the United States and Mexico a decade ago, an interesting trade pattern has emerged: growing quantities of cheap American corn cross the border southward, while increasing numbers of Mexicans corn farmers abandon their fields and cross the border northward, looking for work.

Today, nearly a third of corn consumed in Mexico comes from the United States.

Since 1994, according to new data from Oxfam International, Mexican corn prices have fallen by more than 70 percent. Meanwhile, the government in Mexico City estimates that 400,000 of this country's farmers leave their land every year, many of them young men seeking work in the United States.

It's not just corn, of course. Since NAFTA went into effect, Mexican agriculture has been consistently undersold by highly efficient, heavily subsidized U.S. imports. It's been disastrous for the country's bean, chicken, pig and coffee farmers.

But nothing has been hit harder than corn, or resonates so deeply in the Mexican soul. For 10,000 years, the inhabitants of Mexico have based their diets and their lives around this grain. Pre-Colombian Indians worshipped a god of corn; today, most Mexicans eat corn at every meal. Now Mexican corn and the 15 million Mexicans who depend on it economically are in crisis.

"Continuing to produce in the current market simply isn't possible," said Armando Joffre, director general of Nuestro Maiz. "If we don't do something, Mexico will just stop growing corn altogether."

12Next »

Post a comment

There are comments on this article, submit your opinion!

Commenting is disabled for this entry.
If you feel there is still something worth mentioning about this entry please contact the author or the site admin.

Ask a Question

You Report

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  3. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  4. Wife aids Woods after SUV crash
  5. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
More Top Stories »
  1. In tobacco-loving Virginia, bars give up the habit
  2. Grade-schooler unearths fossil at dinosaur park
  3. Climate czar rejects doctored data claims
  4. HOLMES: Behind Obama's overseas allure
  5. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God

Most Shared

  1. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  2. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
  3. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  4. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  5. Finance mavens gloomy
More Top Stories »
  1. In tobacco-loving Virginia, bars give up the habit
  2. Fenty's approval in D.C. divided by race
  3. Drug lords finding safe haven in Bolivia
  4. Global Warmists exposed
  5. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God

Most Commented

  1. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  2. EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up
  3. Climate czar rejects doctored data claims
  4. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  5. PRUDEN: Trouble afoot for high priests
More Top Stories »
  1. EDITORIAL: The duty of a nation to obey God
  2. Crashers probe may become criminal investigation
  3. HOLMES: Behind Obama's overseas allure
  4. Obama taking emissions goal to summit
  5. 9/11 families sharply split on civilian court trials

Listen to Washington Times Radio

  • America's Morning News

    with John McCaslin and Melanie Morgan

Blogs & Columns

  • Hot Button Blog

    RNC: Breast cancer recommendations may lead to 'rationing'

  • Belief Blog

    Evangelicals OK civil disobedience

  • Out of Context

    Foods that might kill libido

  • On the Fly

    United lifts some 'award' blocking

  • Technology

    Facebook wins round against phishing spammer

  • Redskins 360

    Hall out, Rogers will start

  • SNOBlog

    Beyond 'Woody'

Videos

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.