[PEN-L:12227] Re: FAST TRACK ALERT; Heads Up: Son of NAFTA

[Interhemispheric Resouce Center]

Jim-

The bigger picture may change your mind about the protection of the food
supply. The U.S. produces and exports the very pesticides that you are
worried about reentering the states via Mexican food exports. If we were
really worried about protecting the U.S. instead of protecting corporate
profits we would ban their production and distribution here.

You make it sound like mexican producers are being malicious about their
food exports, aiming to harm the U.S. Unfortunatly, these practices also
impact the local populations who also eat these foods. Moreover, the
growers and workers in the fields are exposed to these dangerous pesticides
(imported from the U.S. with safety instructions written in ENGLISH) who
die in the fields from overexposure.

Agriculture is a very complicated industry, with 5 or so companies
controlling well over 1/2 of the global food industry. Many of these
operate in Mexico (Cargill, ConAgra, Continental Grain, and Monsanto, just
to name a few). So many of these injustices aren't committed by the hands
of Mexicans, but by U.S. corporations.

Protection of food supplies should be a priority of the U.S. but it isn't
NAFTA which is the cause, it is the free reign of our global corporations.

Erik Leaver
Interhemispheric Resouce Center

>Jim Cullen
>What are *good* reasons if not the protection of our food supply? Mexican
>farmers use pesticides that are banned in the United States and their food
>safety and environmental protection regulations, where they exist, are
>largely unenforced (as are their labor laws). The Clinton administration
>does not even want to include side agreements on labor and the environment
>in the new round of "free trade" talks. Why should we let foreign producers
>cut corners, compromise safety regulations and export questionable food
>into the United States, allowing them to undercut domestic producers who
>are regulated?