Mexico Bans GMO Corn Effective Immediately

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/mexico-bans-gmo-corn-effective-immediately-1382022349

Effective immediately, companies like Monsanto and DuPont/Pioneer will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country’s borders.

According to Environmental Food and Justice, Judge Jaime Eduardo Verdugo J. of the Twelfth Federal District Court for Civil Matters of Mexico City wrote that the genetically engineered corn posed ”the risk of imminent harm to the environment.”

He also ordered Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture and SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales), the equivalent to the U.S. EPA, to immediately “suspend all activities involving the planting of transgenic corn in the country and end the granting of permission for experimental and pilot commercial plantings.”

The ruling means Monsanto and other biotech companies will be required to halt all activities in the country, giving collective action lawsuits initiated by citizens, farmers, scientists and other concerned parties a chance to work their way through the judicial system.

[darkangel218]

1. +1

[Orrex]

2. This is good news

Because a lot of people who've heard some bad stuff about GMO food are super upset about it.

[Fearless]

3. Excellent!

And now we take cue from Mexico and follow suit??

[fasttense]

4. Oh thank God

Mexico has the genetic pool (for lack of a better description) for corn and other vegetables. If it got contaminated with GMOs, then the ability to develop new resistant varieties might all disappear.

[bananas]

20. This is really good news, they stopped experimental plantings too. nt

[NeonDog]

5. In the U.S. consumers battle for GMO labels..Let us choose: Just Label It

This means I'll be buying Mexican corn..

[Berlum]

6. Mexican Psychics have long predicted this

Even though the Scientific Materialists trying to shove the MUTANT corn down humanity's gullet, are incapable of recognizing the brilliant accuracy of the intuitives.

Good on Mexico - leading the way to GMO sanity (and intuitive development).

[yuiyoshida]

8. I can imagine the problems they would have it..

[rurallib]

9. can NAFTA somehow be invoked to over rule this ruling?

[Nye Bevan]

10. How many people have been killed by GM corn? (nt)

[Greybnk48]

13. That's exactly the problem. No could answer that question

because these companies have not bothered to do the research as to harm caused by ingesting this stuff over time. We're the guinea pigs.

Another real problem is that it muscles out other varieties of corn, each with their own unique flavor and composition, and eventually you end up with the "bully crop" and that's all you have.

Seed saving for the next season is forbidden by Monsanto, so if they had their way, every corn farmer on the planet would have to buy their crop seed from Monsanto at the beginning of every growing season. Nice trick, if you can pull it off. Fortunately people are rebelling.

[CSStrowbridge]

15. The only case...

The only case of people becoming sick by eating GMO corn were accidentally fed GMO corn feed, the stuff meant for cows. The amount of fiber in that type of corn is too much for humans to handle. You could eat the safest organic corn feed and you would still end up with acute fiber poisoning.

I hate Monsanto, but there is too much misinformation out there about GMOs.

[freebrew]

18. I doubt that..

people have been eating 'field corn' for a long time. If it's picked fresh and tender it's extremely good.

Most feed corn is harvested after the moisture content is depleted. So it's dry and hard.

[CrispyQ]

31. Field corn is not what is fed to cattle, at least not in the giant CAFOs.

A CAFO is a concentrated animal feeding operation & the corn grown for cattle & the HFCS industry is not the corn grown for human consumption. "King Corn" is an excellent documentary about the corn industry in this country, how it's subsidized, how big Agra is taking over. Netflix has it. It was really fascinating.

[lunasun]

53. what century are you referencing?

Not quite like that anymore........

[Berlum]

47. Slow, degenerate decrepitude is what happens. Not keel over kick ass DEATH

We be talking GMO mutant crapola = alzhiemers, MS and especially Parkinson's. There's your GMO toxic consequences.

[RC]

16. You're kidding, right?

People have to die before something is proven bad?. First off we do not even know how the genes in the food we eat affect us, let alone how the for profit at any cost Monsanto crops would over decades. Another is GMO crops are do not have much, if any genetic variety. Disease could wipe out a seasons crop. Those plants that are engineered to make their own pesticides and herbicides, have those chemical's in every cell of plant and are in our food supply. That does not sound very healthy to me.
It is less how many people are killed, and more how they effect the environment. Once those engineered genes are set loose in the environment and contaminate normal plants, there is no turning back. The damage is done.

[KurtNYC]

25. We have been eating GMO for 20 years now.

Every liter of coca-cola is full of GMO corn. Millions and millions of gallons of it for 20 years.

GMO crops do NOT make their own herbicides (!) Transgenic crops have a limited period of use because they lose the traits forced into them within a few generations.

The big trend in corn farming lately is "no till" and mostly because it saves money, man hours and has higher yields than GM + herbicide systems.

[bahrbearian]

29. Thanks for the video

[bananas]

21. Researchers: GM Crops Are Killing Monarch Butterflies, After All

The first law of ecology: Everything is connected to everything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Commoner

Barry Commoner (May 28, 1917 – September 30, 2012) was an American biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 U.S. presidential election on the Citizens Party ticket.[1] He served as editor of Science Illustrated magazine.[2]

<snip>

Four Laws of Ecology

One of Commoner's lasting legacies is his four laws of ecology, as written in The Closing Circle in 1971.[15] The four laws are:[16]

1. Everything Is Connected to Everything Else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.
   
   
2. Everything Must Go Somewhere. There is no "waste" in nature and there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.
   
   
3. Nature Knows Best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, "likely to be detrimental to that system"
   
   
4. There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.
   

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/03/researchers-gm-crops-are-killing-monarch-butterflies-after-all

Researchers: GM Crops Are Killing Monarch Butterflies, After All

—By Tom Philpott | Wed Mar. 21, 2012 10:00 AM PDT

If any insect species can be described as charismatic minifauna, it's the monarch butterfly. The gorgeous creatures flutter about in a migratory range that stretches from the northern part of South America up into Canada. The monarch is the only butterfly species that undertakes such a long-distance migration. And when they alight upon a place en masse, heads turn. No fewer than five states—Texas, Alabama, Idaho, illinois, and Minnesota—claim the monarch as their state insect.

Unfortunately, the monarch populations appear to be in a state of decline. Why? A new study (abstract; press release) from University of Minnesota and Iowa State University researchers points to an answer: the rapid rise of crops engineered to withstand herbicides.

Their argument is powerful. Monarchs lay their eggs on one particular kind of plant: the milkweed. And when the eggs hatch, the caterpillars feed exclusively on the weed. Milkweed is common throughout the Midwest, and has long thrived at the edges of corn fields. But when Monsanto rolled out its "Roundup Ready" seeds in 1996, which grew into plants that could thrive amid lashings of its flagship Roundup herbicide, the Midwest's ecology changed. As farmers regularly doused ever-expanding swaths of land with Roundup without having to worry about the hurting their crops, milkweed no longer thrived—and as a result, the charismatic butterfly whose caterpillars require it can no longer thrive, either.

The researchers estimate that the amount of milkweed in in the Midwest plunged by 58 percent from 1999 to 2010, pressured mainly by the expansion of Roundup Ready genetically engineered crops. Over the same period, monarch egg production in the regions sank by 81 percent. And it turns out that monarchs tend to lay more eggs milkweeds that sprout up in and around cultivated fields. So when farmers snuff out the milkweeds with Roundup, they're exerting a disproportionate effect on monarchs.

<snip>

[bvar22]

32. We don't really know.

There were reports of many farmer suicides in India linked to GM crops.
Monsanto and other Corporate Farm spokespersons deny this,
but can we trust them?

You may, but we don't.

[eridani]

40. It kills small farms who can't afford to fight back when Monsanto sues them n/t

[lonestarnot]

11. Yes!

[Laelth]

12. Interesting.

Note that in TPP countries, if a member nation pulled a "stunt" like this, the TPP court could rule that the state law is overturned, and the state could be ordered to pay a fine to the "innocent corporation" whose rights were violated.

That's how dangerous and unprecedented the TPP is. It is a threat to national and state sovereignty.

-Laelth

[BelgianMadCow]

50. +1

Ramrodding GMO is a key goal of TTIP/TPP

[ReRe]

14. K&R

Thank you so much for this news, eridani!

[Javaman]

17. how much longer do you think Judge Jaime Eduardo Verdugo will have a job?

or live?

[IdaBriggs]

19. I lost a friend earlier this year who would have been thrilled about this.

I'm already happy about this ruling, but on her behalf, I'm going to "double down on the happy."

She was allergic to corn, and always said that the biggest problem with the world was that there was too much corn in it.

She got me checking for "corn syrup" as part of my shopping, and she was right - blasted stuff is in EVERYTHING.

Make it untested GMO, and things just get uglier.

Still miss her - would have loved to talk about this development with her.

Sigh.

[adavid]

22. So with more and more countries..

banning GMO's, and the US Agra-business depending on grain exports for commerce, what will the farmers do?

[KurtNYC]

27. This...

Cover crops and no till -- cheaper, more effective and better for the health of the farmers and farm workers.

[Texano78704]

23. So much for science ...

[Dreamer Tatum]

24. Good call. If you're going to get killed in Mexico...

...it had damn sure better be by beheading, or torture, or in a hail of gunfire from a cartel, or from crooked cops.

GMO corn can't kill you fast enough, and god damn it, GMO corn can't leave your corpse hanging from a bridge.

Leave death in Mexico to drug dealers and crooked cops, where it belongs.

[BronxBoy]

30. Mexico had one of the worlds most diverse corn crops

Many varieties were lost due to international trade and global trade agreements. More were probably lost to GMO issues,just like the US, I'm pretty sure Mexico can deal with both it's drug and agricultural issues at the same time

[Comrade Grumpy]

57. That's a pretty stupid post.

What does Mexico's problem with prohibition-generated violence have to do with corn? Nothing.

[fascisthunter]

58. it was stupid

[Aristus]

26. Oh shit. Monsanto is going to bribe congressional repukes into drumming

up a war with Mexico now...

[pugetres]

28. GMO corn production (Crops) are banned in Mexico, Not GMO corn imports

Cannot grow it down there but they have no bans in place that disallow for GMO corn to be imported. And, they import a lot of the stuff.

GMO crops do offer a better yield than heirloom crops so US farmers will benefit from continued export of high-yield GMO corn to Mexico.

[Cha]

33. Muy Intelligente! Viva Mexico~

We finally finally got this Bill Passed..

Kauai passes bill to limit biotech’s use of pesticides and GMOs


View overlooking the taro fields on Kauai, Hawaii. (Credit: Sarah Fields Photography/Flickr)

"That’s the gist of a bill passed by the Kauai County Council early this morning. The decision came after months of protests from islanders and mainland U.S. groups that wanted to see tougher regulations on companies that come to the island to take advantage of its year-round growing season. The final 6-1 vote was the result of a 19-hour marathon hearing that began at 9 a.m Tuesday and didn’t come to a close until 3:35 a.m. the next day.

The details, via the Huffington Post:

The bill affects the heaviest users of restricted use pesticides, including the four biotech companies that operate on the island: Syngenta, DuPont-Pioneer, Dow and BASF, as well as Kauai Coffee Co.

The law will force those companies to disclose what pesticides they are using, where and in what quantities. It sets up buffer zones between fields sprayed with pesticides and public areas, including schools, waterways, parks and hospitals, and requires companies to notify the public before they spray. The county will also be obliged to conduct health and environmental studies to asses the potential effects of pesticide use. All farmers will have to publicly disclose any genetically engineered crops that they grow.

“This victory is an amazing credit to the people of Kauai who stood up to massive pressure from the GMO companies and won their right to know about pesticides and GMOs in their community,” Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the California-based Center for Environmental Health, which supported the bill, told Reuters

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1007350,00.html

But, nothing as good as Mexico has done.. Really really smart!

[sheshe2]

39. To the people of Kauai!

They stood up and were heard. Amazing, people on so many issues are finding their voices and it is working, Cha.

Kudos!

[Cha]

41. It's a miracle, she.. through hard work and determination!

You can imagine what we were going through to instigate this bill. it's one reason I got away from the West side of the Island. Unfettered spraying and planting their freaking frankenfood crops. Very heartbreaking for Kaua'i.

The picture they chose to post is actually on Kaua'i's North Shore which is far away from GMO's harm.

And, what a history.. the missionaries who came to Hawai'i so many many years ago bought up all the land and then rented it out to monsanto types in the 21st century.

To the Environment and those who work so hard to protect her! I am in awe of Mexico's ruling on GMO.. and admire them so much for that.

It's the Aina, she!

[sheshe2]

42. To our future, Cha!

[freshwest]

43. Ah, Kauai is beautiful in more ways than one! I'll be right there! Well, one of these days...

[Cha]

45. So happy we got this Bill Passed! Not that far for you, fresh..

[freshwest]

46. Gorgeous! Sheshe's rainbow!

[Agony]

34. Land Race Indigenous Corn

http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/english/projects/ecological-agricultural-education/mother-seeds-in-resistance-gmo-free-chiapas.html


Farmers and indigenous officials have urged Schools for Chiapas to let the world know that they are struggling to maintain a GMO-free zone and everyone in the world who is resisting genetically modified crops can always rely on the Zapatistas for support. The Schools for Chiapas project Mother Seeds in Resistance is a community-based and directed effort to save the natural or mother corns of the indigenous Maya peoples of Chiapas, Mexico, and to advocate for community-based sustainable agriculture, while raising awareness about the dangers of the North America Free Trade Agreement to heritage seeds and small farmers in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Schools for Chiapas is working with community leaders in Chiapas, Mexico to design a program to identify and eradicate any GMO contamination from the Zapatista communities - a first for the world. Schools for Chiapas is also raising funds for GMO test kits and for training to implement this statewide program to protect the Mayan heritage corn. In addition, a community controlled long-term seed storage facility has been built in the highlands of Chiapas. Click here to read a presentation made by indigenous promoters about Mother Seeds in Resistance.

In cooperation with the autonomous, indigenous communities, Schools for Chiapas is also sending corn around the world as part of a solidarity grow-out to protect and promote the Mayan corn and their mission to protect it. Currently Zapatista corn is growing in hundreds of countries on 5 continents. In the spirit of farmers everywhere, the Zapatistas are giving their corn seed away free to interested growers. You will however be asked to sign a pledge to never allow this seed to be patented or used commercially and we would ask that you donate at least the price of one GMO test kit ($6.50) to help pay back the communities for their generous gift!

[Luminous Animal]

36. Thanks for this!

[lunasun]

55. +1

[roody]

35. Knr

[Rstrstx]

37. Meh, pick your poison (literally)

If it isn't GMO it'll have to be the old-fashioned varieties, but that just means they'll have to spray pesticides etc on it. It's a lose-lose

[eridani]

38. Health is not the only issue here

Data for that is ambiguous. Not so for corporate dictatorship over our food supply. We need the large number of variants that Mexico has been trying to conserve.

[Agony]

49. Meh, GMO technology has INCREASED the use of pesticides

GMO technology is also in the process of destroying the effectiveness of biological pesticides like Bt.

The use of GMO technology as conceived by profit driven corporations is failing us.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/us-usa-study-pesticides-idUSBRE89100X20121002
http://e360.yale.edu/digest/growing_number_of_pests_developing_resistance_to_gm_crops/3866/
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/in-india-gm-crops-come-at-a-high-price/?_r=0

You are right, GMO tech might just be a lose-lose.

Agony

[Zorra]

44. K&R nt

[madokie]

48. I'm loving this

[Peregrine]

51. Fine

All US grain shipments to and from Mexico should stop. As well as anything made from grain or comes from animals fed grain. Let Mexico feed their own people.

[tillikum]

52. very good!

[lunasun]

54. This should be on the front page everywhere

[onestepforward]

56. Good for Mexico! n/t

[Egalitarian Thug]

59. 100th rec. n/t