By Rachel Dickson
Interview with: Lic. EduardoVital.
The
Central American Free Trade Agreement is going to change the source
of food for many families from both Guatemala and the U.S.
In order to find out more information about the role of agriculture
in the affects of CAFTA, I spoke with Eduardo Vital, a professor
of agriculture at San Carlos University in Quetzaltenango.
Vital said that CAFTA will present a big problem for the small
farmers who can't compete with the large companies that receive
subsidies from the U.S. government. The small farms will eventually
disappear.
What's more, the World Trade Organization has set rigorous quality
controls on products, and a lot of the time, the small Guatemalan
companies can't comply with these controls. It will much more
difficult for products from Guatemala to enter the U.S.
By eliminating the barriers of trade, the multi-national companies
will have free access to the market because they will be able
to bring products to Guatemala duty-free. The consumers of Guatemala
will have access to more products and cheaper products, yet competition
between the multi-national businesses and the small national Guatemalan
businesses will arise. Only around ten Guatemalan businesses exist
that will possibly be able to compete in the global market, even
though they are still small in comparison to U.S. businesses.
This will cause the bankruptcy of many Guatemalan businesses,
and in turn, unemployment.
Vital believes that if the people of Guatemala don't have jobs,
they won't be able to buy the cheap products. For a small period
of time, the people of Guatemala will be able to buy the cheap
imported products, but then Guatemala will lose businesses and
employment, and the people will not be able to pay even the lower
prices. The farmers, many of whom practice sustainable agriculture,
will go bankrupt as well.
Worker's rights are not protected under CAFTA. Vital says that
there is a chapter of CAFTA which says that national businesses
need to comply with the labor laws of their respective countries,
but this does not affect the multi-national businesses.
Vital has read the entire treaty, which is more than two-thousand
pages, and he claims that there are no stipulations that favor
the farmers of Guatemala. All of the norms favor the larger companies.
For example, textiles from Guatemala can enter the market duty-free,
but only if the thread used was produced in Central or North America.
The problem for Guatemala is that it is a lot cheaper to obtain
these threads from China. It may appear that there are norms that
are beneficial for Guatemala, but in fact this is never the case.
The economy of Guatemala will deteriorate significantly because
of the treaty, but the economy of the U.S. will not be affected
much. The major purpose of the treaty for the U.S. is obtaining
the control of Central American countries - politically, economically,
and militaristically.
The asymmetry between Guatemala and the U.S. exists en practically
every aspect. There is inequality in production, income, poverty,
education, health, and technology levels. The inhabitants of Guatemala
will be reduced to merely consumers under CAFTA.
