Closer to Home: Dumping on Mexican Corn Farmers

While Illinois farmers are paid upwards of $323 million in corn subsidies, Mexico, our neighbor to the south, suffers from the dumping of cheap U.S. corn into their markets.

Mexico has grown corn for 10,000 years, but with the flood of imported cheap corn from the U.S., Mexican corn farmers are currently living on less than one-third the income they earned 10 years ago. Moreover, they are forced to sell all that they grow for an income, rather than keep some of the crop to feed their families. The result is that poverty is spreading to more than 70% in the population of rural areas in Mexico.

Another unfortunate bi-product of this practice is that many thousands of Mexican farmers are being forced to seek work elsewhere. Many are migrating to the United States in search of employment while the burden of raising the family is left to their wives. Many families, unable to pay for health care and other essentials, are pulling their children out of school to bring in meager wages to help the family make ends meet.

Oxfam America has written a briefing paper, "Dumping Without Borders," that explains how U.S. agricultural policies are ruining the livelihoods of Mexican corn farmers.