Fight Against Monsanto Enters the Courtroom
Fight Against Monsanto Enters the Courtroom
Escrito por Alfredo Acedo | 28 / April / 2014
The fight against genetically modified corn in Mexico began in the communities, leaped to the streets, spread to the printed page and now is being carried on in the courtroom. It is an uneven dispute in which the federal government has sided with the transnational corporation and against the majority of Mexican farmers and consumers. But in the latest battle the public good gained ground, under a strategy that combines effective mobilization with informational campaigns and legal cases.
The debate over GM corn isn’t an argument between fanatical followers and stubborn opponents, but rather a war of interests in which one side seeking maximum profits plays outside the rules. They hide information, smear researchers, activists and judges, take action to discredit serious studies and resort to misinformation. The other side, comprised of peasant farmers and consumers, has taken up the task of defending traditional knowledge, campesino autonomy, access to decent work and sustainable agriculture.
Recently, the Union of Concerned Scientists has been the most active in the defense of Mexican corn, although the GM invasion isn’t a scientific problem in essence. According to researcher Elena Álvarez-Buylla there is no longer a scientific debate given “the obsolescence of the gene paradigm” that posits that a gene behaves the same in a foreign organism as it does in its original organism. This has been promoted by genetic engineering at the service of the transnational corporations. It is a model that has failed to hold up although the corporations continue to use the label of “science” to justify it.
Álvarez-Buylla and Alma Piñeyro edited a recent book on the dangers to Mexican corn from genetically modified organisms. The book brings together nearly 50 specialists in more than 500 pages. It concludes that if Mexico authorizes the commercial cultivation of Monsanto’s GM corn genetic alterations will accumulate in native maize varieties, eroding the farm economy with negative effects on biodiversity and human health. In the preface, Jose Sarukhan, former dean of the national university (UNAM) and director of the National Commission for the Understanding and Use of Biodiversity, cites a landmark study by his commission in 2011 to state that “practically all national land” is a center of origin and genetic diversity of corn, with some 60 native landraces and thousands of varieties across the country.
More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11926