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| Attitudes in Mexico:
"Thousands of farmers on foot and on lumbering tractors
clogged Mexico City Thursday to protest the lifting of corn tariffs under a
free trade agreement, which they say is hurting their pockets.
"No corn, no country" was the byword of the protest plastered in signs on
tractors and buses, as the angry farmers, some of them leading herds of cattle
through the streets, demanded equal treatment with farmers in the U.S. and
Canada.
While it was mostly peaceful, some tension existed late Wednesday when a
column of slow-moving tractors ground to a reluctant halt before a phalanx of
anti-riot police that barred access to the Zocalo, the city's main square.
Some 1,500 police have fanned out across the city to prevent any unrest
stemming from the protest, as farmers from across the country have made their
way here, some on foot for 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles), since Jan. 18.
A provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement lifting tariffs on
corn - Mexico's staple food - kicked in on Jan. 1, 14 years after the agreement
between the three neighbors came into being.
They also complain of mounting fuel, fertilizer and electricity prices which
they claim represent 60% of the average cost of running a farm and place them
at a severe disadvantage to their northern competitors."
Sort of a time warp for me as I recall after closing out some profitable trades in 1974 taking the family to Mexico City with the intent of spending a month in the country....turned out to be two weeks as I still had positions on but discovered I could only get a telephone call through about every 8 or 10 hours and sometimes not then.
Flew over to Puerto Vallarta with the idea being a tourist location the phone service might be a little better... a DC-3 & recall one passenger carried a small pig in a crate..& discovered the phone service was even worse...walked into this very nice resort...couldn't get thru...threw the phone at the clerk..(my salad days & could get a little obnoxious) & hit him in the head & lucky the Federales weren't called & later did go down and apologize..profusely (also unusual for me) but I do recall when driving west of Mexico City one morning observing my first real Oxen being legitmately used as a work animal.
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Costs in Mexico
