Chico, I have always been a farmer, si, a wheat farmer—wheat and sometimes soybeans. Ever since I was a little boy, I would plant the grain at seeding time and collect the grain at harvest time in the spring and the fall with Mama and Papa and all my brothers and sisters. Oh, those were the good times, back when the government paid us good money for our wheat here in our corner of the Yaqui Valley in Mexico. Papa says they gave us thirty percent subsidy, but I do not remember—I was hardly ten back then. As I grew into a man, I spent my youth years doing what all youths do when not working at the fields, si. I learned cards, I drank with the other men, I set my eye on the prettiest girl of all of las chicas on the next farm…ay, her smile was as golden as the wheat fields at harvest time! But work was harder, and everybody felt it. One year, when I was ten or twelve, the price of fertilizer went up, and it did not go back down—the fertilizer subsidy eliminated, they said. That was in the 1990’s. Before I was twenty, the fertilizer price was over fifty percent more expensive than what we were paying before. But it didn’t end there, no señor. The government also wanted the ejidos to own more of the land—small plots were inefficient, they said. My family, we were lucky enough to buy out some more land to survive, but some of the neighboring farms didn’t make it; they got bought out within a few years. What’s more, the price of water for irrigating the fields went up by more than half, too. Fortunately, the price of our wheat rose too, and that helped pay for some of the growing costs. The girl that I had eyed for so long eventually married another boy, but soon I found a nice girl from another nearby farm, and we married. Meanwhile, though, droughts drained the supply of irrigation water, and we spent more and more money on fertilizer as per government instruction to modernize our farming techniques. Today, I am thirty years of age. The farm makes more wheat than ever, yet growing it has become so expensive that my wife, my children, and myself are barely getting by.
This free trade that the Mexican government has embraced may be good for them, but it is not good for me. First, they make our necessities more expensive by eliminating subsidies so that the prices of fertilizer and water increase by more than half, then they fix up the ownership of the land so that all of our old neighbors are gone now and the ejidos rule the Yaqui Valley, the landscape changed. They make us do all of this in the name of modernized agriculture; they say it is for the good of the country, but frankly, I find it hard to see the good when I produce more wheat than I ever have before, only to get less money per bushel in return every year since the increase of wheat on the market drives the prices lower and lower. It is unfair that we must compete with America’s low grain prices since American farms get so much money in subsidy for their production. They absolutely flood the market with their cheap wheat. But in the end, are we better off than before free trade changed the way the government wanted us to farm? No señor. Overall, the family is making more money than before thanks to the increase wheat exports, but the work is hard and the pay is still not enough, especially with all the children to support. My wife and I wish we could send them to university, but ay, that is a daydream. We are living from season to season, and there are still harvests that cause us to lose money. The fertilizer and the water for irrigation are as expensive as ever. The price for irrigating the fields will most likely increase in the future, too, because droughts render the water supply inconsistent. Even when it rains, weather that is too warm also produces smaller crops, reducing my income for the season. The vast amounts of nitrogen fertilizer might also be unhealthy for the fields—my family never used this much before—but the government wants more wheat to export, and I do not have time to worry about how these farming techniques will affect me in the long-term. My main concern is producing enough wheat for the next season.
I hear that perhaps, America will have to eliminate their farm grain subsidies, or at least make them lower. If that happens, then grain prices will be higher, the way they should be. Then we will be making the profit that we deserve so that our farm may prosper on the global market without any unfair advantages on any country’s part. Our dream would be to save enough money to send one of our children to a college to get a degree and a better job. Our eldest one, Esperanza, is studying hard. She hopes to get a scholarship, and it puts a smile on my face when she tells me that, but when we are pinching pesos here and there in a struggle to gather the money for application fees, it is hard to hope. Perhaps college is still too far-fetched of a dream. Right now, while the government’s agricultural and export policies still hurt us because of free trade, I have few choices. If fortune smiles upon my farm, I may be able to obtain more land and produce more wheat to trade. If not, perhaps my family will move to the city or move to America, wherever we might be able to succeed the most. I hear that America is not such a good place to live in because of the recession.
But hey, chico, I figure that what goes, goes.
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