1-06-08, 1:41 pm

Mexico, Jan 6 (Prensa Latina) Corn producers predicted hunger and social disaster in Mexico's poorest sectors, due to the lifting of tariffs on corn imports from the United States and Canada, by virtue of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Most agricultural Mexican states are already affected by the measure, which came into force on January 1, 2008.

Studies on the negative consequence of NAFTA show that the price of tortillas, which cost nearly one dollar per kilogram in the southern state of Chiapas, will increase up to 30 percent.

The lifting of import tariffs on corn, beans, rice, milk and sugar will cause an unequal trade war between Mexico and its international competitors, whose interests are subsidized by their governments.

Mario Coutiño, president of the Consultative Council of the Mass Industry in Chiapas, said that gasoline prices have increased two cents of a dollar, and predicted that tortilla prices will readjust in February.

The industrialist expressed concern and explained the intension of reaching an agreement with the state government to grant preferential subsidies to the poor.

'It is almost certain that next month a kilogram of tortilla will cost ten pesos, equivalent to one dollar, the average cost of the daily family shopping basket,' he said.

For his part, Lorenzo Mejia, president of the National Union of Mills and Tortilla Industrialists, pointed out that the opening will bring sophisticated US-made machinery to Mexico.

'A commercial offensive will come on us as a result of foreign product dumping, including imports of transgenic corn for animals,' he noted.

From Prensa Latina