GM seeds and diversity
Someone mentioned an interest in a post on GM foods, which is what I´ve been working on for some years now in Mexico. Perhaps this will elicit some echoes.
Currently, there is an intense, well-orchestrated and highly financed campaign on behalf Biotech Corporations (Monsanto, Pioneer, Bayer, Cargill) and many irrigation farmer organizations to introduce GM corn seed immediately in Mexico. “We can´t wait” they say.
I just attended a nearby conference in which people who defend native corn were portrayed as misguided romantics who want Mexico´s indigenous people always to remain quaintly poor. They criticized their notion of progress and refuted all scientific claims about possible dangers of GM seeds. The speakers painted visionary pictures of a civilization on the verge of a new and glorious era that would change our customs and cultures forever, a period in which we would eat our medicine in tortillas (each according to his-her needs), in which there would be liberty and justice for all. A Neo-Comtean paradise at our fingertips.
I am no luddite, and am grateful to all farmers, but I am very nervous about the potential impact of genetic contamination of Mexico´s most strategic grain (I understand that the US does not allow GM wheat, unless I am under-informed). Seven thousand-plus years of evolutionary biology should not be taken lightly. I believe we are deeply indebted to the indigenous peoples who invented and shared ixim, sunnuku, centli, maisí, corn in Meso-America and have been its stewards for millenia. Yet there is little more than contempt for them, their ways, their understanding. Armando Bartra has called the denial and sabotage of maize “Food racism- racismo alimentario”.
Monsanto has offered magnanimously to “donate” a massive seed bank to some Mexican NGO (probably just out of the oven) to ensure the safeguarding of native seeds, but there is never any mention of those who provided the seed in the first place, those who gave them the raw material for their “intellectual property”. (Here, I am sadly reminded of the case of the Canadian soy seed farmer who lost her livliehood to Monsanto in a lawsuit because her plants were contaminated by their “intellectual property”).link text
The bottom line is that GM corn is being systematically legislated down our throats and that financial gain for some is being placed before genetic integrity, biological and cultural diversity or any other consideration (surprise, surprise).
The dilemma is complex: Irrigation farmers are already addicted to hybrid seed that require high levels of agrotoxics, and have no native seed of their own to plant, even though they would probably fare poorly in their already depleted soils. The promise of high-yield crops together with the promise of low agro-toxics use raises many an eyebrow, and could hold promise for the future, but humanity should be convinced through impartial research that there are no significant genetic dangers, either to humans or to other living organisms before we proceed to plant such crops.
The idea of “seeding” seed with pharmaceuticals, or ethanol rich proteins is also perturbing. “Hey, Honey, what´s for dinner?”
For most indigenous farmers of the Americas, maize is still a sacred crop that their life depends on. They plant enough to ensure their subsistence and that of their communities. The commercial value of the grain is of little interest, as they continue to exist on the fringes of the global glut economy. I have often thought that the imposition of GM corn is akin to the massive slaughter of the buffalo in the latter half of the nineteenth century. “Maybe at last we can civilize the savages.” Here, there is a sense of living under the gun.
I earnestly feel that we owe it to ourselves to take the time to find some kind of solution for what seems to be a “my way or the highway” situation. If we are incapable of coming up with something that works for the different groups involved, not to mention our own digestive tracts, our world will become increasingly gray, unsurprising, insipid, unhealthy and melancoly.
I believe in beauty, how bout you?
some links for Spanish readers link text