Monsanto Uses Latest Food Crisis to Push Transgenic Corn in Mexico

Monsanto Uses Latest Food Crisis to Push Transgenic Corn in Mexico

As the food crisis looms, the real danger – for the nourishment, health and culture of the country – is in choosing the Monsanto agenda over strengthening national agriculture. The cultivation of transgenics will accelerate the loss of Mexico’s food sovereignty and contaminate vital native strains of corn.

The aggressive PR operation to promote the introduction of GM corn in Mexico comes after the company reported declining profits last year and a drop in its share price due to shrinking sales of Roundup and GM soy and corn seeds in South America and Europe.

The Mexican market represents potential earnings of $400 million annually for Monsanto and for some government officials that’s enough to turn a blind eye toward any risk to native corn species, the economy or Mexican health.

Seven EU member states prohibit the planting of Monsanto’s transgenic corn due to mounting evidence about environmental and economic impacts, and to apply the precautionary principle that stipulates that when impact on human health is unknown precaution is warranted. Polls show that public opposition to transgenics is as high as 61 percent.

Beginning in October of 2009, a few months after a meeting between Felipe Calderón and Monsanto President Hugh Grant, the federal government approved 29 applications for experimental transgenic corn plots, breaking a decade-long moratorium. Most of the licenses were issued to Monsanto and Dow Agro Science to test corn strains resistant to herbicides and blight on more than a dozen hectares.

Last year, after keeping the sites secret and without adequately disclosing the results of the experimental plantings in violation of the Biosecurity Law, the government accepted 20 more applications from the aforementioned transnationals, plus Syngenta. If all these permits are authorized, there would be more than 1,000 hectares planted with transgenic corn.

Monsanto is lying when it implies that its biotechnology can resolve Mexico’s food crisis: it is amply documented that transgenics don’t increase yields.

Transgenic corn strains weren’t designed to increase yield. The vast majority of transgenic crops are designed to resist the application of herbicides also manufactured by Monsanto. They actually create more dependency due to the need to buy seed and the contamination of native varieties. They also damage the environment, the economy and human health.