Mexico Pressured to Protect Beans

WASHINGTON - Sep 7/05 - SNS -- Efforts by some groups in Mexico to get the government to withdraw dry edible beans and corn from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) continues, according to a recent report from the U.S. agricultural attache for the country.

"According to Jorge Witker, an academic within the Law Investigations Institute of Mexico's Autonomous National University, Mexico has viable legal jurisdiction to modify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to exclude white corn and dry beans from the completion of the trade liberalization process scheduled for 2008," the agricultural attache wrote.

"He explained that Mexico could achieve such an exclusion through the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization, which allows developing countries to establish or sustain protection for their sensitive agricultural products.

"Witker said that Mexico should take advantage of this to exclude white corn and dry beans from the current phase out process under NAFTA, as almost two million rural families depend on these basic grains."