[Pirateninfo] genetisch veränderter Mais in Mexiko (engl. Text)

[Silke Pohl]

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To:             	<mexiconews@globalexchange.org>(News from the Global
Exchange
	Mexico Program)
Date sent:      	Fri, 4 Oct 2002 08:40:46 -0700
Subject:        	Genetically Engineered (GE) Corn Contamination - One
Year Later
From:           	Mexico Program <mexico@globalexchange.org>

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Dear Friends,

A little over one year ago, on September 18th, 2001, Mexico’s Ministry
for Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) confirmed reports
that native corn (maize) varieties in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and
Puebla had been contaminated by genetically engineered varieties. The
SEMARNAT’s admission confirmed the fears of many civil society
organizations: the genetic contamination of a center of origin and
diversity for one of the world’s most important crops, corn. For last
year's alert and subsequent updates see
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/news/gmo100101.html.

The announcement sparked a firestorm controversy with the publication
of a report in the prestigious science journal ‘Nature.’ Nature
published the findings by two UC Berkeley researchers, David Quist and
Ignacio Chapela, which 1) exposed the genetic contamination of native
corn, and 2) described potential modes of genetic contamination. The
report was sharply criticized by the biotechnology industry, not for
the revelation of genetic contamination of corn, but for the way the
genetic contamination is spreading.

Government response - one year later

One year after the SEMARNAT’s announcement, little has been done to
mitigate the problem. Genetically Engineered corn imported from the
United States, believed to be the largest primary source of
contamination, will likely reach an all-time high this year; Mexican
campesinos will further be undermined by the recently passed Farm Bill
in the United States; top Mexican scientists in the Biosafety
Commission (CIBIOGEM) resigned because their findings were not being
taken into account; important Biosafety legislation has been stalled
in the Mexican Congress.

On May 13th, President Bush signed the Farm Security and Rural
Investment Act of 2002. The $248.6 billion bill represents an 80%
increase over the 1996 farm bill, the Freedom to Farm Act, and a major
boon for corporate agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. The
Farm Security and Rural Investment Act will further subsidize the
surplus production of basic grains, like corn, leading to increased
"dumping" of agriculture exports on the underdeveloped world.
Increased Genetically Engineered corn exports from the United States
will no doubt further undermine Mexico's food sovereignty, and expand
the overall level of genetic contamination of native corn varieties.

The Intersecretarial Commission on Biosafety and GMOs (CIBIOGEM),
created in 1999 under the Ernesto Zedillo administration, is comprised
of the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Health, Public
Education, Interior and Economy. The CIBIOGEM was created in response
to a investigation by the National Science and Technology Commission
(CONACYT), detailing potential impacts of GM corn in Mexico. In
theory, the CIBIOGEM would provide an intersecretarial commission to
address biosafety concerns through coordination of appropriate
Ministries, thus facilitating the protection of Mexico's biological
integrity.

However, on August 12th, 13 scientists of the CIBIOGEM’s technical
council resigned their posts, citing that their views were not being
taken into account by the Fox administration. The resignation of the
CIBIOGEM’s top scientists is a step back for the Commission’s
credibility, and puts the future of effective Biosafety measures in
question.

Mexico ratified the Caratagena Protocol on Biosafety on May 1st, but
the Protocol has yet to be converted to national law. At present there
are 5 different Biosafety bills under consideration in the Mexican
Congress. The different Bills represent not only one version of the
original United Nations text, but several of Mexico’s political
parties. The National Action Party’s (PAN) measure for example was
created in conjunction with representatives of Grupo Pulsar, Mexico’s
leading biotechnology corporation, and largely reflects corporate
interests.

Grassroots response -- one year later

Despite the apparent inactivity on behalf of the Mexican government,
and international forums, like the Convention on Biological Diversity
and the World Summit on Sustainable Development, civil society is
responding.

On January 23 and 24, representatives from 70 ecologist, campesino and
indigenous organizations, including academic and governmental
representatives, met at the Hotel Ejecutivo in Mexico City to discuss
the dire situation of Mexican corn. The conference, entitled "In
Defense of Corn," was catalyzed by the urgent necessity to create a
national citizen response to the recent confirmation of genetic
contamination of Mexican native  varieties of corn. Representatives
from Global Exchange's Mexico program participated in the analysis and
development of an action plan with national NGOs and campesino
organizations. In Chiapas, Global Exchange initiated a monitoring
program to investigate the genetic contamination of native corn
varieties, as well as carry out the conference's action plan with
local organizations and communities.

April 10-17, 2002 marked the 1st Continental Week of Action against GE
Corn. The Week was coordinated by Global Exchange, the Organic
Consumers Association, CIEPAC, COMPITCH, among other Indigenous,
campesinos and ecology organizations, aimed at informing and
mobilizing indigenous and campesino communities, consumer and
environmental organizations. The Week sparked a new beginning in the
grassroots movement to address GE crops. For more information in this
see:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/biodiversity/gmoCorn041
002. html

On April 24, indigenous, campesinos, and other civil society
organizations presented a formal request that the Commission on
Environmental Cooperation (CEC) to investigate the GE corn
contamination in Mexico. The CEC established under the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to promote environmental cooperation
between NAFTA countries, and implement the North American Agreement on
Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The CEC Secretariat notified NAFTA
member countries on June 20th that the Commission would study the
impacts of Genetically Engineered corn on native species, as well as
carry out a nationwide genetic testing project of native corn samples
for contamination.

Though the CEC’s decision to study the contamination of native Mexican
corn is a small victory, the Commission will not release its findings
till April 2003, at the earliest. Additionally, the CEC is limited to
only providing recommendations.

Marking a new era of cross-boarder organizing, Civil Society
Organizations from Mesoamerica convened in Xela, Guatemala for the
Second Week for Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge, from June 25 -
29 2002. The Second Week brought campesinos, Indigenous Peoples,
activists and consumers together to continue the regional organizing
process started the year before in San Cristóbal de Las Casas,
Chiapas, during the First Week for Biodiversity and Traditional
Knowledge. Forum participants focused intently on the regional corn
contamination crisis,in light of the recent announcement that food aid
from the UN's World Food Program and United States Agency for
International Development contained the Genetically Engineered corn
variety, StarLink, that was unfit  for human consumption and
prohibited in the United States.

In light of governments and international conventions’ lack of desire
or inability to address the problem, the solution rests squarely on
the shoulders of civil society. One such solution is the Mother Seeds
in Resistance project in the Zapatista Aguascalientes of Oventic. The
program demonstrates a local, autonomous solution, created in
cooperation with cross-boarder activists.

Find below:

1) An article on the Mother Seeds in Resistance project in Oventic

2) An article on the recent report, “Seeds of Doubt,” by the Soil
Association, Britain’s leading organic organization. The report
reviews the commercial impact of GE crops in North America since 1996,
and finds that GE crops have generally been an “economic disaster.”
“Seeds of Doubt” will certainly play a significant role in the Mexican
government’s deliberations on the future of GE crops in Mexico. For
more information on the Soil Association and their recent report
“Seeds of Doubt”
http://www.soilassociation.org/sa/saweb.nsf/getinvolved/geneng.html

3) Information about NOW WITH BILL MOYERS PROBES THE CONTROVERSIES
SURROUNDING GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS, showing Friday, October
4,
2002 at 9pm ET on PBS (check your local listings at
http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html ) -- Apologies to readers not in the
USA --

----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- 1) Zapatista Seed
Saving Project Puts Its First Collection of Traditional Corn Seeds
Into Deep Freeze Storage in Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico

CHIAPAS, Mexico, Sept. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- The prayers of the
kneeling school board members and education promoters were sung softly
in Tzotzil. Eventually they floated above the burning candles and
escaped through the metal door smiling as they gently caressing the
fog-shrouded mural newly painted on the front of the massive concrete
library.

"We're praying for survival of the mother seeds of corn and the
success of our students who have just graduated," murmured the
president of the school board. "With our wives and the new teachers we
ask the creator to allow this school to continue and to give us the
strength to continue our resistance."

The weeks before offering prayers at the school library were a blur of
frenzy at the First of January autonomous secondary school in the
Zapatista civilian center of Oventik, Aguascalientes II located in the
highlands of Chiapas near the municipal center of San Andres
Sacamch'en de los Pobres. Two years after opening the first
autonomous, indigenous secondary school there was plenty to do. Dozens
of varieties of corn seed had to be readied for final storage,
students had to practice for their first-ever graduation day, dances
had to be finalized, poems had to be memorized, and a feast had to be
prepared for graduation day. The prayers would only come after all the
work was completed.

Visiting scientist supports young teachers

Teachers certainly had plenty to do, but attending classes in seed
saving techniques from a visiting scientist topped the agenda for
every single education promoter at this civilian Zapatista center know
as Oventik, Aguascalientes II.

"We just wanted to tell you how exciting it is to study about
preserving our original corn." Juan and Pedro, young teachers - as
young as the students themselves - told a workshop organizer during
the first week of study. "We want to thank you for these talks and
discussions. It's good to talk about these things in Tzotzil because
it is our own language."

Mother Seeds in Resistance from the Lands of Chiapas is a popular seed
bank established on Jan. 1, 2002 by the autonomous, indigenous school
system in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. "The big companies like
Monsanto are sending their genetically modified corn everywhere,"
commented one education promoter during a January 2002 interview in
Oventik, Aguascalientes II. "We have to save our original corn from
infections by these dangerous new forms of life."

Safe Houses for the Mother Corn

Large sheets of butcher paper covered the walls of the new second
story classroom. One sheet boldly described in Spanish and Tzotzil two
types of "safe houses" for Mother Corn.

"We have to protect these little seeds because they are under attack
just like our communities," softly explained one young, education
promoter. "My grandfather was killed because he defended the
traditions of our community and he believed in justice and democracy.
Now even if I am an indigenous woman I have to defend our corn so that
our traditions can continue." There were drawings of the safe house
for the seed itself and there were drawings of "safe houses" for the
indigenous knowledge that surrounds and gives the seed and the Maya
people their eternal cycle of life. "You see the seed that cannot
survive without its' people, and we cannot survive without our corn."

"What sort of a camp is this?" demanded the city dweller who had
driven three hours into the mountains from the state capital of
Tuxtula Gutierrez. "Where do all these people come from and what are
they doing?" The indigenous community leader's only comment was that
the hospital was taking care of patients, the school had students, and
some people were visiting to help with some project.

The drivers' jaw dropped open farther as he saw the sprawling hillside
complex beside a tiny Maya village included brand new school
buildings, a massive auditorium, an Olympic sized basketball court
facing a large plaza, metal and woodworking workshops, a beautiful
church, and rough wooden dormitories with dozens of Mexican and
foreign visitors on school construction teams or attending language
classes. The delivery man's questions continued as the freezer was
connected to the new electrical service and a silent and dark Virgin
of Guadalupe complete with Zapatista mask took her place on the wooden
wall above the humming white machine.

"Before the seed can sleep for many years in the freezer," explained
the visiting scientist, "our laboratory techniques must prove that the
moisture content of the see is below 6 percent; otherwise when the
water inside the corn seed freezes it will expand and burst the cell
membranes killing the seed."

The promoters set up their own production line in one of the new two
story classrooms as the day dawned and light streamed into the room
still waiting for chalkboards and electricity. One team sifted the
seed out of the lime where they were stored temporarily to keep them
dry and safe from insects. Their red bandana masks that usually
protect their identities and identify them as Zapatistas had the more
practical purpose of filtering out lime dust.

Inside, teams of indigenous youth shuttled pots full of corn out to
the sifters and another team wrote registration numbers and collection
data on the foil and plastic bags and labels and entered each
collection into a central registry. The seed teams poured the corn
seed into the marked bags and took them to the drying team. There the
education promoters carefully placed open bags on pans of a
gypsum-drying agent inside a waterproof environment created by two
large plastic bags tied with bright colored thread. Several days later
found the entire group of education promoters bashing dozens of
multicolored corn seeds that balanced precariously on rocks placed on
the classroom floor.

"If the seed mashes it proves that the water content is above the six
percent we need," explained one teacher who happily waved a large
steel hammer in one hand while balancing a baby on her hip with the
other hand. "When the seed shatters it is dry enough to be sealed in
these foil bags and placed in the freezer where it will be safe for
many years from infections by genetically modified pollen."

Later in the day students switched to one hundred percent Tzotzil as
they explored the uses of corn in their communities. "I'll write it
for everyone," exclaimed the enthusiastic education promoter leaping
forward. Everyone shouted out names and spoke excitedly, all laughing
and debating and talking at the same time over the finer points and
the many variations among their far-flung communities. "You really are
men and women of corn," joked a visiting teacher trainer as the list
of Tzotzil nouns grew longer and longer.

After the students walked the muddy pathways returning to their homes,
a tiny red spot glowed brightly outside the freezer's building
signaling that the high tech machine was functioning. And as the
moonlight streamed brightly above, light from the large candles still
burning in the school's library seemed to accept and welcome the
weaker illumination from the safely sleeping seeds. Let us all pray
that these people and their corn can survive this brave new world.

Maya Seed Saving as an Educational Program

Mother Seeds in Resistance from the Lands of Chiapas is both
educational and practical. The project encourages indigenous students
to assume responsibility for continuing the science and culture of
corn passed on from their Maya ancestors, for thousands of years.

In addition to collecting and preserving these vital original seeds,
students are researching, recording, and studying a vast amount of
agricultural and cultural information from these farmers. This data
includes the types of soils and mini-climate most suited to each seed
type, recipes for preparing each type of corn, as well as ceremonies
and stories associated with each variety of corn. The Zapatista
Education System's seed bank management is integrated as a continual
relationship between the farming families and the schools; between the
high-tech freezer and the traditional milpa. Collecting, learning and
guarding their heritage is a learning process for all students. The
entire community of adults and elders who plant and harvest corn to
live, are therefore the principal teachers of the students and the
education promoters who have replaced the government's teachers in the
autonomous schools.

Mother Seeds in Resistance from the Lands of Chiapas is also a
response to the threat posed by the contamination and displacement of
indigenous corn varieties by the genetically engineered and high input
varieties from the industrialized north that are flooding rural Mexico
in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Mexico, which is the center of origin of corn and carries the world's
greatest diversity of corn, banned cultivation of transgenic corn in
1998. However, the ban is only on the cultivation not on the import of
corn seed. Five million tons of North American corn, almost all
transgenic, is imported every year. Transgenic corn was found growing
in Oaxaca in 2001. Then in 2002 Mexican scientists reported that 12
percent of the plants they sampled from Oaxaca and Puebla were
contaminated or were transgenic varieties. The alarming situation
forced the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
in Mexico City to check all of its corn stocks for contamination.

Attending the National Forum in Defense of Mexican Corn in January of
2002, Zapatista representatives Ricardo and Genaro noted that "We are
people who are made of corn and earth" and declared their fear that
"agro-chemical companies have patented our natural corn so that we
will then have to buy trans-genetic corn." At the forum they announced
their intention to start their own seed-banks to preserve and protect
their "mother seeds" safe from contamination and annihilation by the
invasion of foreign corn strains.

Students collected sixty-one local varieties of corn from communities
throughout the highlands, earlier in the year. In a series of
educational and practical workshops during August, these collections
were dried to a low moisture content, sealed in special seed storage
bags and placed into long term storage in a freezer in the Schools for
Chiapas office in Oventic.

Oventic was established as Aguascalientes II, after the destruction of
the original Aguascalientes in the community of Guadalupe Tepeyac by
the Mexican Army in the failed 1995 offensive to arrest the EZLN
leadership.

The five Aguascalientes are regional civilian cultural centers with
schools, clinics, meeting places businesses and workshops to serve and
support the Zapatista communities and to promote the Zapatista culture
and spirit. The Zapatista spirit is made visible in Oventic. It is a
spirit of autonomy. It is a spirit of resistance to the global system
that sneers at them and wants them gone. It is a spirit of dignity as
they resist, and as they walk, creating their own path before them.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- 2) UK report casts
doubt on North American GM crops By Veronica Brown

LONDON, Sept 17, 2002 (Reuters) - Genetically modified crops in North
America have been an economic disaster, which has caused some farm
groups there to call for a moratorium on GM wheat, the next proposed
crop to be altered, a report released on Tuesday said.

The study by the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic
organisation, estimated that gene-altered maize, soya and rapeseed may
have cost the U.S. economy $12 billion since 1999 in farm subsidies,
lower crop prices, loss of major export orders and product recalls.

Scientists have said that the advent of such crops could be the answer
to world hunger, but the report said claims of increased yields have
not been realised overall -- except for a small increase in some maize
yields.

The report said farmers are not achieving the higher profits promised
by the biotech companies as markets for GM food collapse, citing
widespread GM contamination at all levels of the food and farming
industry as the source.

"Within a few years of the introduction of GM crops, almost the entire
$300 million annual US maize exports to the EU had disappeared, and
the US share of the soya market had decreased," the report said.

"The lost export trade as a result of GM crops is thought to have
caused a fall in farm prices and hence a need for increased government
subsidies, estimated at an extra $3-$5 billion annually," it added.

MORATORIUM

It found that severe problems with gene-spliced crops has led more
than 200 groups representing farmers and the organic sector in North
America to call for a moratorium on the introduction of GM wheat.

For the last several years, leading biotech company Monsanto has
stressed the benefits its genetically modified Roundup Ready wheat can
bring to farmers.

The herbicide resistant strain, for which Monsanto is currently
seeking regulatory approval, could mean efficiencies and potentially
higher yields for farmers, according to the firm.

Public opinion in Europe is wary of gene-altered crops after a string
of food safety scares, including mad cow disease, and there is a
three-year de facto ban in place on approvals of new GM varieties.

Soil Association Director Peter Melchett said the report came as a
timely note of caution to Britain ahead of a decision due next year on
whether to commercialise GM crops following its three-year field test
programme.

"With UK agriculture still suffering a deep economic crisis, the
temptation to seize a new technology is great," he told the media at
the report's launch.

"GM technology was introduced to the USA when farmers were financially
vulnerable. The biotechnology industry's claims that their products
would bring benefits were widely accepted, but GM crops have now
proved to be a financial liability," he added. Melchett said he hoped
the report would result in a better informed public debate, and a more
independent, less pressurised decision about the commercialisation of
GM crops in the UK.

Britain's government formally launched a public debate on the issue
earlier this year, but trust in biotech companies took a battering
recently with the disclosure of small impurities in field trials for
oilseed rape, which threatened to derail the government's field trial
programme on the environmental impact of such crops.

The blunder also prompted UK environment minister Michael Meacher to
break with the government's broadly GM-sympathetic government line,
saying that the country was being pressured by the U.S. to allow
commercial planting of gene-spliced crops. "I do think it's right that
there are people in the government who are beginning to see that you
cannot both promote organic farming and promote GMO's at the same
time," Melchett said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- 3) Coming up on NOW
with Bill Moyers on Friday, October 4, 2002 at 9pm ET on PBS (check
your local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html ) --
Apologies to readers not in the USA --

NOW WITH BILL MOYERS PROBES THE CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING
GENETICALLY
ENGINEERED CROPS

A quiet revolution has taken place in America's farm fields. Since
1996, the acreage of genetically engineered crops has swelled from
zero to more than 90 million acres. Corn has been genetically
engineered to act as its own pesticide and kill the insects that can
devastate a harvest. Soy has been genetically engineered to withstand
an herbicide that wipes out the threat from weeds. Genetically
engineered ingredients are now in 70% of the processed foods on
American grocery shelves. Yet there have been few long-term studies
completed to predict the potential consequences. Are these new crops
good for the environment, for farming, for human health?

In "Seeds of Conflict," airing Friday, October 4, 2002, at 9 P.M., on
PBS (check local listings), NOW with Bill Moyers goes inside the corn
controversy. NOW producer Gail Ablow and NOW correspondent and Nation
magazine reporter Mark Schapiro travels to Mexico, the genetic
birthplace of corn, and to the heart of American agriculture in the
Midwest to speak to the farmers and scientists on both sides of the
issue. The investigation continues in a companion article by Schapiro
that will be published the week following the broadcast in the Nation.

"Genetically engineered food crops, mostly corn and soybeans, make
farmers' lives easier in the short term, but there is an enormous
amount we don't know about its long term implications for the
environment," says Schapiro. "Six years out of the laboratory and into
the fields, and the potential risks have barely been studied. We're
starting to see indications that it may not be as foolproof as the
claims suggest."

Some scientists working at the cutting edge of plant biotechnology
believe that the potential benefits from genetically engineering crops
are extraordinary. "I think the potential for plant production systems
for vaccine products is huge," says Dr. Kan Wang, a researcher at the
Iowa State University. "There are a lot of companies working on this
issue...vaccines for HIV, for Hepatitis B, for maybe Alzheimer's are
in the future."

While genetically engineered corn now accounts for 30% of the total
U.S. corn crop and can be found as an ingredient in corn sweeteners,
cooking oils, breakfast cereals, some countries are troubled by the
rapid increase in production. The government of Mexico is particularly
concerned about genetically engineered corn, which has been discovered
in Mexico's crop even though it was banned four years ago. The
diversity of Mexico's corn crop-hundreds of farmer varieties are grown
there-is considered essential to the corn's survival.

"This diversity is the basis of our food supply," says Mauricio
Bellon, an human ecologist at the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center (CYMMYT) in Mexico. "We need this diversity to cope
with the future, with evolution, with unpredictable things."



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