Fourth Round of NAFTA Negotiations Threatens Family Farmers and Environment
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The fourth round of secret negotiations on a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) continues today in Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C.
As negotiations continue over the future of trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States, Bill Waren has released a new blog focused on trade implications for agriculture and food entitled: 7 ways Trump’s NAFTA threatens family farmers, animal welfare, our health and the environment.
Bill Waren, senior trade analyst at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement in response:
Donald Trump’s effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement will put sustainable family farms at risk if it incorporates agricultural and regulatory provisions of the failed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. A new NAFTA built on the TPP model will encourage a proliferation of factory farms that will ramp up air and water pollution, the inhumane treatment of animals, deforestation, and massive use of environmentally-hazardous fertilizers, pesticides, and fossil fuels.
Declining commodity prices driven by speculation and corporate control over exports have driven independent ranchers and farmers into economic distress. A new NAFTA deal on agriculture modeled on the TPP will further increase volatility of agricultural markets and augment corporate control of agriculture at the expense of declining rural communities and struggling family farms.
For more information, please see the joint statement of Friends of the Earth Mexico and Friends of the Earth, U.S. on NAFTA renegotiation and the joint statement of Friends of the Earth Canada and Friends of the Earth U.S.
Expert contact: Bill Waren, (202) 222-0746, [email protected]
Communications contact: Patrick Davis, (202) 222-0744, [email protected]