Protecting Honduran farmers

Dancing at a Honduran harvest festival [Marcella Haddad]

Honduran farmers face strong competition from heavily-subsidised US imports due to the Free Trade Agreement. Our partner COMAL works with local producers and lobbies on trade issues

Almost seven out of ten Honduran communities sow maize and beans to survive. Over the last decade rice production has fallen dramatically and though once self-sufficient in maize, Honduras is now importing.

Trinidad Sanchez, director of COMAL , explains: “The government has signed a free trade agreement with the United States. They are trying to convince us that in 15 years we will reach a point where Honduran maize will either be able to compete or will have been substituted with something else.

“If the US dropped its subsidies we would be able to compete now. Labour is cheaper here. It’s part of our culture. It’s not difficult for us to produce. The problem is that the issue of subsidies is not negotiable.

“The World Bank and the IMF urged the government to take this road. The issue of rice is worst but the same is happening with maize, beans, potatoes.”

Before, Honduras produced all the maize it needed, now it imports - and many Hondurans are migrating to the US to look for work. Even those that stay often end up working on assembly lines in the “maquilas” (foreign-owned companies) in San Pedro Sula and other cities.

COMAL buys maize and other produce from farmers like Constantino Martinez to sell in their community shops [Marcella Haddad]

“We resisted the treaty really strongly. We spoke with government negotiators and so on,” says Trinidad. “But it was impossible. We have a popular movement but the US has a lot of money devoted to their campaign in Central America. We couldn’t compete."

Health and strength

He is also concerned about the impact that genetically modified imports are having on the nation’s health.

“There are parts of the country where children know nothing about maize. They receive ready-made tortillas imported from factories in Mexico, made with genetically modified ingredients. We want to encourage people to produce maize in their own communities."

Betty Vasquez works for COMAL’s political lobbying unit, and says the free trade agreement and globalisation have generated more poverty in Honduras because bigger companies benefit to the detriment of smaller ones.

“Globalisation is a threat because people stop producing and become consumers. It also attacks our culture,” she says.
As maize production has fallen, women in particular have been affected because they hold no rights to land, technical assistance, or the credit they need.

“More women now go and work in the foreign assembly plants (maquilas) but there are no laws to protect them, or to say they should receive a fair wage. They often work overtime and aren’t given maternity leave. If you get pregnant, they sack you.

Betty Vasquez [Marcella Haddad]

"Women are most affected by the opening of markets, especially indigenous women. Poorer, rural, indigenous women do not have an education. They don’t compute in this commercial world.”

A vision of transformation

COMAL is part of a larger network that already extends to 14 countries – Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Argentina.

Its vision is that when many small businesses join together as a network, they can act like a big company – a national network – a transnational in Latin America with principles and values of justice, respect for nature, respect for all people.

Betty says: “We have a vision of transformation for the country – a wider transformation, of laws that favour the poor. We have a team that studies the law and lobbies at national level.

"COMAL can’t do this alone. We join with other networks and debate national problems with other organisations – indigenous groups, women’s groups, farmers and labourers – groups which were traditionally divided.

"We bring them together.”

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