Trade > Alternative to NAFTA

Building an Alternative People - to - People NAFTA

Download this Document

The most abiding discovery in our work over the past few years on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is that people from poor rural areas speak a common language and share visions and goals that are more similar than different. And, because they understand each other, they are anxious to work together to achieve common goals. One of these is an interactive people-to-people alternative NAFTA marketing and health network we are calling "The Supermarket."

On a September night in 1992 on the dark streets of El Paso, near the bridge to Mexico, over 50 members of the Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural rallied with farmworkers sleeping on cardboard awaiting the labor contractors. Backbone of the fantastically profitable industry which turns chili peppers into salsa, picante sauce and profits, the workers reported they took home $15-$20 a day, after 15 hours or more of traveling and working. They were paid 49 cents for every ten gallon bucket of chilies. The women told us that to earn at the poverty line would be a luxury.

During the same Assembly, the group visited several ejidos in Mexico and did their own analysis of what impact NAFTA would have. After comparing notes with the US producers on their relative costs of production, the Mexican farmers whose livelihood is based on maize concluded, "I guess we will not be able to grow corn anymore." As the US Congress debate NAFTA during 1993, the dialogue between the groups continued. In October 1993, the RC returned with a US Congressional delegation head by Rep. John Conyers, chair of the US House of Representatives Government Operations committee. Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders made his first foray into rural Mexico on that trip. A few weeks later, now Mexico Congressional Representative Victor Quintana, and Frente Democratico Campesino member and co-founder, Padre Camillo Daniel, testified in Washington before the same committee.

The groups on both sides of the border determined that NAFTA as constructed favored corporate interests, and its impact would hurt poor communities in the US and Mexico. Back on the bridge in El Paso, they signed a pact to create their own "people - to - people" NAFTA alternative. The day before NAFTA passed, a demonstration by the groups from Mexico and El Paso was violently broken up by Mexican government law enforcement officials, and a farmworker woman injured. Rep. Sanders made a floor statement in the US Congress protestng the incident.

NAFTA passed the US Congress, and was ratified by both governments. In March, 1994, over 50 farmworker and Mexico farm representatives traveled by bus to the RC Assembly in South Carolina to discuss community development and trade. On the way, they attended a training on cooperative development hosted by the stop at the Federaton of Southern Cooperatves Training Center. A RC board delegation traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico in May, 1994 to begin identifying a framework for trade, and to identify products that were available.

The marketing project was further refined at the 1995 Assembly, a work plan established and additional communities expressed interest including HOME and the Land Loss Prevention Project.

In 1996 RC delegates again visited proposed sites and partners in Mexico. The RC Board of Directors engaged a consultant familiar with marketing, cooperatives and use of the internet in marketing to survey groups in Mexico regarding interest, products, and season of production. In a report presented to the RC Board in October, over $13 million in goods were identified for potential sale in agricultural and indigenous communities.

What we have learned is that the largest obstacle to successful marketing of community products is building a cooperative structure and gaining the trust of producers who have had their products stolen in the past. The markets exist but each group alone cannot find the markets or supply them in sufficient volume. Trust has been built in every shared activity. We are now ready to move toward exchanging goods. In May, the RC Workers on the Land Committee will meet in El Paso to finalize principles of cooperation to be submitted to the Assembly. In June 1997, the RC Assembly willreview and hopefully affirm these principles and then begin marketing of goods across the US - Mexico border.