NFFC Trade

NFFC believes that our international trade policy must recognize each nation's right and responsibility to make their own decisions about how to develop and protect the capacity to grow food, sustain the livelihood of food producers, and feed the people in its own borders.

Current trade agreements deprive nations of the right to protect their food production systems. Transnational agribusinesses make a fortune buying crops at a price below cost-of-production, and dumping them in other countries, driving local farmers off the land. Domestic food production in these countries has collapsed, and we now face a world food crisis, despite the record profits that agribusinesses are reporting. Grain reserves, which served to stabilize prices and food supplies for millennia, were abolished in the name of "free trade", exacerbating the crisis. Nevertheless, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization continues to push for more trade liberalization.

The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009, H.R. 3012 and S. 2821, would make significant progress in protecting family farmers at home and abroad and would promote food sovereignty, a country's right to determine its own food policies. Please urge your Representative and Senators to co-sponsor the TRADE Act.

Read our TRADE Act Fact Sheet.

For more information on the TRADE Act and ways to get involved, please visit our partner, the Citizens Trade Campaign, at www.citizenstrade.org.

The Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaign asked farm organizations and other civil society groups around the world to sign onto to the following call in support of agriculture, trade and food policies that support a sustainable livelihood for farmers and assure food for all.

Click below to read the Call for Action.

Visit
http://wtoturnaround.org/
to sign a petition asking
President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise of turning around the WTO.

NAFTA Resources

Trade Resources

Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement a Framework for the Future (01.26.10)

Country of Origin Labeling

Towards Food Sovereignty: Constructing an Alternative to the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture (2003)

Betting The Farm On Free Trade
(06.06.05)

Learn more about the
Global Development and Environment Institute's Globalization and Sustainable Development Program.

Agricultural Dumping Under NAFTA:
Estimating the Costs of U.S. Agricultural Policies
to Mexican Producers

With the opening of the Mexican economy under NAFTA, Mexican agriculture came under new competitive pressures from US exports. In this new GDAE working paper, Timothy A. Wise estimates the costs of U.S. agricultural dumping to Mexican producers at $12.8 billion.

Rethinking Trade Policy for Development:
Lessons From Mexico Under NAFTA

Nearly sixteen years after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented, Eduardo Zepeda of the Carnegie Endowment and Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher of Tufts Unversity's Global Development and Environment Institute present a comprehensive assessment of Mexico's poor economic performance under NAFTA.

Unfair Trade - Mexico's Agriculture Crisis:
How Free Trade, the United States, and
Transnational Corporations Made it Happen

Hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers – campesinos – have been plunged into severe economic hardship as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other "free trade" policies, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE). Scores of U.S. farmers are also suffering due to a dramatic increase in low-cost agricultural imports.

NFFC Trade and Food Sovereignty Task Force

Activities

Goals

NFFC's Trade and Food Sovereignty Task Force is comprised of NFFC member groups that work on the grassroots level whose leaders educate farmers and community members on trade issues. The Task Force also facilitates information, provides updates on trade negotiations, and coordinates meetings with local officials and congressional members. This ensures the strong presence and family farmers' voice in local and national media, especially during trade agreement negotiations like the World Trade Organization's Cancun Ministerial and the FTAA negotiations in Miami, Florida.

Farmer leaders within NFFC also represent the organization within Via Campesina, the international farmer peasant organization. Farmer leaders and NFFC staff also participate in both the field and legislative efforts within the Citizens Trade Campaign.

- Develop fair trade alternatives that incorporate a family farm agenda on farm income issues and biotechnology crop approval/marketing/labeling issues

- Develop a farmer-based strategy against the expansion of NAFTA and bi-lateral trade agreements based on the NAFTA model.

Priorities

1. Develop networks with other venues including the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development to ensure the family farmer link to other organizing efforts.

2. Continue work with Via Campesina to develop a stronger North American presence.

3. Continue work with partner organizations on trade: Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), Grassroots International, Public Citizen and others to develop an alternative vision for a fair agricultural trade policy.

4. Develop a further analysis of US agriculture and biotechnology positions at the World Trade Organization.

National Family Farm Coalition
110 Maryland Ave. N.E., Suite 307
Washington, DC 20002

nffc@nffc.net

ph (202) 543-5675
fax (202) 543-0978