CANADIAN FARMERS ALSO HURT
Despite Canada's agricultural trade surplus with the U.S.,
small-scale farmers have been hit hard as the opening of
their domestic market has subjected them to the low prices
and high volatility of the NAFTA's export-driven model. In
Canada, farm debt nearly doubled since the 1988 Canada-
U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) and its expansion into
NAFTA — from C$22.5 billion in 1989 to C$44.2 billion in
2001. According to the Canadian National Farmers Union,
net farm income in Canada dropped a staggering 24%
across the same period. These enormous pressures have
taken their toll on Canadian farmers:by 2002, nearly 50,000
Canadian farmers had been forced from their jobs and off
the land since CUFTA came into effect in 1988. Between
1996 and 2001 alone, Canada lost 11% of its family farms.
While CUFTA and NAFTA boosters in Canada promised
new markets for Canada and farm co-ops, the main result
has been greater corporate consolidation of agriculture and
food production in Canada.Since CUFTA went into effect in
1988, the four main farming co-ops in Canada,
Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba Pools and United Grain
Growers, have been consolidated into Agricore United of
which the U.S. multinational ADM now owns a large
portion. Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and U.S.-based Cargill
control 75% of western-grain handling; ADM also now
controls nearly half of Canadian flour milling capacity;
ConAgra owns 64% of Canada's malt milling plants, and
Cargill and meatpacker IBP owned over two-thirds of all
Canadian beef-packing plants. As the NFU noted in recent
testimony to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry, "almost every link in the chain,
nearly every sector is dominated by between two and ten
multibillion-dollar multinational corporations."
http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA_10_ag.pdf
