Peasant Leaders Stage Hunger Strike Against Genetically Modified Corn
Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 by Common Dreams
Peasant Leaders Stage Hunger Strike Against Genetically Modified Corn
Planting of genetically modified corn would be 'coup de grace to food sovereignty for the Mexican people.'
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
The fight against genetically modified crops continues Wednesday as peasant leaders embark on a hunger strike and sit-in in Mexico City demanding their country be gmo-free, and slamming the economic model that favors multinational corporations over food sovereignty.
The National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA), a network of Mexican farming organizations that advocates for small farmers’ livelihoods and rights, organized the protest ahead of the likely authorization of 2.4 million hectares (six million acres) to be planted with genetically modified (gm) corn by agricultural behemoths Monsanto, DuPont and Dow in Mexico.
In a letter explaining the day's actions, the group writes:
We want to reach the hearts and minds of the people of Mexico and the World to share our grave concern for the health, culture and economy of our nation, eroded by a development model that only benefits a tiny minority, a minority which includes the transnational corporations that today conspire to appropriate for themselves one of the greatest heritages of our peoples: MAIZE. [...]
[W]e demand that the Mexican government place the interests of peasants and the majority of Mexican farmers above the interests of a few transnational corporations.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/23-5