| | |  Editorials | Environmental | October 2009 
GM Maize Sparks Controversy in Mexico
 RedOrbit
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October 30, 2009
 |  | No country should be dependent for its food from other countries.
- Ariel Alvarez Morales |  | | |
Amidst growing concerns of global food shortages, scientists continue to push the frontiers of genetically modified foods in an attempt to head off the looming crisis.
Some of their efforts, however — such as attempts to test a new variety of GM corn in Mexico — are clashing with millennia-old cultural traditions seeking to preserve the original form of the ancient staple food.
A number of pre-colonial Indian religions even believed that human life first sprang forth from the sacred, life-sustaining plant.
But it isn’t merely the superstitious who are battling to keep technologically tweaked maize out of Mexico. Many farmers and average citizens fear that Mexico — the origin and motherland of corn — could potentially lose its natural diversity plants to a handful of sturdier, more competitive breeds of GM corn, a development that some say could drive hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers out of work.
In an effort to help push down domestic food prices and make the country a self-sufficient producer of corn again, the Mexican government granted 22 permits to several multinational agribusinesses this month to run trials on GM maize farms in northern and western regions of the country
The permits will allow only around 25 acres to be planted with GM corn in a few northern border states and the western state of Sinaloa. Government officials have also assured that measures will be taken to prevent the GM strains from cross-pollinating with and contaminating local native varieties.
Though Mexico remains the world’s number one producer of white corn, the country has found itself importing ever-increasing quantities of yellow maize from the United States, which is predominantly used as livestock fodder.
Amidst a global economic crisis and a rapidly increasing world population, maize prices have more than doubled since 2007, leading to massive protests throughout the country last year.
“No country should be dependent for its food from other countries,” said Ariel Alvarez Morales, chief of the Bi-Secretarial Commission on Biosecurity of Genetically-Modified Organisms, in an interview with AFP.
“We can take advantage of this biodiversity we have in maize, and part of that can also be through this [GM] technology,” he added.
While a number of European countries continue to restrict the use of GM crops within their borders, most of the world’s economic powerhouses — including the United States, China and India — have been exploiting the potential of scientifically enhanced foodstuffs for years.
The environmental organization Greenpeace has been one of the players spearheading the movement to keep GM products out of Mexico. The group says that the newly issued permits will risk contaminating more than half of the country’s 50 native maize varieties and has filed court motions to have the government revoke the permits.
“The final goal is not to experiment. It’s to open the door for these kind of crops which only benefit the companies, not the producers nor Mexican consumers,” Greenpeace activist Aleira Lara told AFP.
Despite fears that the diverse native strains of maize will be eradicated by GM plants, the country maintains a massive library of native seeds at a seed bank in central Mexico, where some 27,000 seed samples are preserved at sub-zero temperatures.
“It’s a repository of potentially useful genes for future breeding and response to problems,” explained Kevin Pixley of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Texcoco where the seed bank is located.
Scientists and corn-experts at the center do more than just guard the seed samples, however. They also engage with local farmers, advising them on more efficient farming methods and creating various maize hybrids that are able to thrive in adverse conditions.
Pixley, like many others at the center, have a different notion of what will benefit local farmers than that suggested by Greenpeace activists.
“If conserving diversity in the field actually conserves [the] poverty of the farmers by having them grow varieties that are far inferior to those that are available, then I think it’s a debatable issue,” said Pixley. |
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