But it doesn't help...
>But if there is
>> someone here with expertise, that would be most helpful. As Brad's
>> colleague Alain deJanvry may point out, the inability to make a
>> transition to (so called) higher value added fruit and vegetable
>> exports has had many causes (and it was on the possibility of this
>> transition that NAFTA was sold) : lack of access to credit, reduction
>> of subsidies for crucial inputs as they grow more expensive, lack of
>> productive foreign investment (despite the privatization of land) and
> > continuing US non tariff barriers.
cf. the opening of David Bonior's National Press Club speech in 1997:
Last spring, a little girl from Michigan named Lindsay Doneth was rushed to the hospital with a fever of 103, bleeding lips, nausea and sharp pains. As Lindsay screamed in agony, her mom and dad sat by her hospital bed, unsure whether their 10-year-old would live or die.
Doctors said Lindsay had contracted hepatitis, a potentially deadly blood disorder. And she wasn't alone.... 179 of them had eaten contaminated Mexican strawberries in the school cafeteria....
And it's not just tainted food that's slipping into the country. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, 70 percent of the cocaine entering the United States now rolls across the Mexican border. One former DEA official called NAFTA "a deal made in narco-heaven."