Chicoms Cometh The Closet Agricultural Bugaboo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

 

Chicoms Cometh

The Closet Agricultural Bugaboo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

 

            There is simply no reason we should be reliant on a communist country like China for our food supply.

                                                                                 ~ Dan Newhouse (R-Wa)

            Have you been watching the future’s market?

            These live cattle contracts are starting to rattle some cages. Although there may be a glimmer of hope that the drought might be breaking, the liquidation of the cowherd from the Dry Quarter isn’t doing anything to shake the fear the calf numbers are just not going to be there this year or next when the trucks start backing up to the loading chutes.

            Friends and colleagues are starting to smile when nobody is watching, but these major upsets always wind up with payback extracted from somebody. If you have been to the Costco and peered into the meat counters, you’ll see the implications. Days ago, another old rancher and I sought some degree of self-protection standing together in one of the stores in El Paso. Staring at the offerings and the prices there was a long pause before he spoke and mirrored what I was thinking.

            Golly, I don’t think I can afford that.

            Chicoms Cometh

            If we begin to cede the responsibility over our food supply to an adversarial foreign nation, we could be forced into exporting food that is grown within our own borders and meant for our own use.

                                                                               ~ Dan Newhouse (R-Wa), cont.

            Congressman Newhouse is, of course, is suggesting that the United States should not only be concerned, but do something about the flurry of activity of China buying American farmland (and food processing). His worry reflects the fact that China’s American farmland holdings have increased tenfold over the last decade and now equates to something just over $2,000,000,000.

            Six states (Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Oklahoma) are worried enough they have even adopted legislation barring such investment.

            According to data, it appears the Chicoms owned about 195,000 acres of American farmland at the beginning of 2022. Certainly, that is a chunk of ground, but it represents only about one half of one percent of all agricultural land owned by foreign interests. If the loss of production is the concern, though, there isn’t a current uprising against the other countries.

            The fact is there is no suggestion that any of these lands are being bought up to curtail production or to limit the purchase of any inputs (American or otherwise) in the production of agricultural products. These investors are here to seek the extraordinary gift and production of American agriculture. That production may go offshore, but so does an immense amount of domestic production itself.

            Dislike China or not, if our country is worried about the curtailment of production, there is only one agent that assumes that role … the United States government.

            The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

            The study of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the document setting forth the terms and conditions ending the Mexican American War, is a fascinating undertaking.

            The fascination starts with Nicholas Trist, the negotiator and author of the document. President Polk recalled Trist in October of 1847 under the intentions of the negotiations would be carried out in Washington under the watchful eye of the Great White Father. In the six weeks it took to deliver Polk’s orders, though, Trist got the deal done on the ground in Mexico and on its way to the president. He personally determined Washington did not understand the situation and the only way to avoid a baise en grappe, the dreadful consequences to our country which cannot fail to attend the loss of that chance, was to get it done. Signed by Trist and Mexican officials of record Cuevas, Couto, and Atristain, the document met the president’s order coming from the other direction and beat any response back to Washington. Polk wound up forwarding the Trist document to the senate where it was ratified with the removal of only one article, the protection of Mexican land grants.

            In Articles VIII and IX of the Treaty, the matter of successional property rights is addressed. In VIII, the phrasing sets forth that such rights extended to citizens of the United States would be inviolably respected to those occupants of Treaty lands in terms of the current owners, their heirs, and others that come later by contract. In IX, there is reference to Mexicans who elect not to preserve the character of the Mexican Republic would be incorporated into the Union of the United States and be admitted into statehood at some proper time with the preservation and enjoyment of those rights.

            Trist believed the removal of Article X and the preservation of Land Grant rights posed future complications, but it did give way to all other lands as if they are inexorably connected to the citizenry that found itself no longer attached to Mexico, but not yet citizens of any American state, either. The one factor that must be conceded is the fact those people who found themselves in lands impacted by the Treaty were, indeed, citizens of those lands under the international Treaty. That means that, aside from those lands purchased and added to the state of New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase, the Treaty explicitly recognized the personal and property rights of New Mexicans under U.S. sovereignty.

            To this day, the citizens were never extended the full enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States.

            The Closet Agriculture Bugaboo

            The smoky haze of our state up until the last days of June 2022 was a testament to the fact that half of the state’s land including forests was never extended to the citizenry to accomplish the two fundamental demands of granting of statehood. That was first to create a sustainable economy to build a self-reliant citizenry, and, secondly, to reduce national and statehood debt.

            That was it.

            There was no special interest agenda. The only interest was the constitutional revelation that the citizenry was the cornerstone, but in New Mexico (and all other states west of the 100^th Meridian) there became only conditional statehood. Over half of the lands were retained by governmental overlords which crippled everything and disallowed the capitalization and installation of full economy and the harvest of potential taxes thereof. From an agricultural perspective, it created a declining base that is proving to be dangerously fatal.

            Witness the utter annual destruction of forest lands including full elimination of physically archived organic material in those now exposed and depleted soils. Witness the parallel elimination of upwards of 80% of the cattle and even higher proportions of sheep on forest lands since 1944. Witness also the fulcrum shift of cattle production from the West to the East since 1950. While we are at it, witness, too, the equally collapsed forest product parallels. Every opportunity of balancing fuel loads while creating economy has been denied.

Citizenry didn’t do that. Citizens wouldn’t do that.

            In short, it is hypocritical to cry foul regarding the redirection of production of foreign owned agricultural land in our country, but to accept the outcome of federally managed lands of our American West. It is here the real tragedy lurks. It is a concluding commentary of epoch proportions.

            It also reveals the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was never honored.

 

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “My heart breaks for the generations of ranchers who have lost more than their lives.”