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Farm Bureau objectives for NAFTA
The leader of the nation’s largest farm organization has some objectives as the renegotiation of NAFTA begins.
American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall participated in a farm policy roundtable during Farmfest in southwest Minnesota Wednesday, highlighting the importance of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement.
He says as NAFTA gets opened up, Farm Bureau’s first priority is to protect aspects of the deal that benefit U.S. agriculture.
“Over the life of that treaty, we went from $8 billion dollars worth of trade to $38 billion. So it’s been a very good trade treaty for American agriculture.”
Duvall tells Brownfield there are also parts of NAFTA that need fixing.
“We want to make sure that Mexico doesn’t use us as a dumping ground and hurting our vegetable farmers down in Florida. We want to make sure that the barriers for our dairy products going into Canada come back down. We want to make sure that they don’t change the rating of wheat when it goes across the border from food-grade wheat to feed wheat.”
NAFTA renegotiations are scheduled to begin August 16th.
Brownfield interviewed Duvall Wednesday during Farmfest near Redwood Falls in southwest Minnesota.
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