Mexico City – Dairy farmers left two cow carcasses outside the gates of Mexico’s economy ministry Monday to protest what they say is the government’s failure to protect and aid domestic producers.
Accompanying the carcasses was a banner denouncing the government’s policies toward the dairy sector.
“Mr. Secretary, in past days I came to ask your help because the dairy formulas were killing me, and as you didn’t help me, today I come so you can bury me, like you are doing with the domestic dairy industry,” the message read.
The protesting farmers hoisted one of the carcasses from a lamppost – as if hanging it from a hook in a butcher’s shop – and left the other blocking the main entrance to the building, whose gates had been closed and locked as a security measure.
During the event, which was organized by a group claiming to represent small-scale dairy producers as well as consumers, farmers hurled chunks of the cattle carcasses against the ministry fence.
The Los Angeles Times reported in April about complaints by Mexican dairy farmers that a surge of milk imports from the United States was threatening to drive them out of business. Producers here, unlike their U.S. counterparts, do not get government subsidies.
Under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Times noted, Mexico is obliged to eliminate all barriers to dairy imports from the United States and Canada by 2008.
