Mexican Corn Farmers

“A Flood of U.S. Corn Rips at Mexico,” Commentary, April 23: Michael Pollan is not talking about free trade. Dumping heavily subsidized products on another country is the utter antithesis of free trade. It doesn’t stop there. U.S. firms patent their hybrid varieties of corn. Mexico has done little to protect, cash in on or patent its infinitely greater genetic wealth. Once again, the U.S. has an unfair advantage; trade is not free.

Mexico has been less than supportive to its small-scale corn farmers. They have often been dispossessed or even shot (as in the Zapatista case in Chiapas). This does not give them a level playing field.

E.N. Anderson

San Bernardino