Mexico City Rises Up Against GMO Corn Plantations Timothy Shipp - The International
go to original February 4, 2013

Genetic engineering is a threat to food security, especially in a changing climate. The introduction of genetically manipulated organisms by choice or by accident grossly undermines sustainable agriculture and in so doing, severely limits the choice of food we can eat. (GreenpeaceVideo)

On Wednesday, January 23rd, regional leaders from a nation-wide peasant organization converged on the Angel of Independence Monument in Mexico City. They were there to begin a sit-in and hunger strike to protest two industrial corn plantation projects that have been proposed by U.S. based multinational agribusiness corporations Monsanto and Pioneer.

The companies have asked the Mexican government to issue permits allowing the planting of genetically modified (GMO) corn crops on at least one million hectares of land in the states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas. In spite of being granted permission to stage the action at the Angel of Independence, the peasant leaders from the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) were met by anti-riot police who had roped off the area, forcing hundreds of smallholder farmers to set up camp nearby.

In a letter issued Thursday by UNORCA’s affiliate, La Via Campesina (The Farmer’s Way), an international organization of peasants and small farmers advocating for food sovereignty, condemned the police barricade at the Angel of Independence, calling the action a betrayal of the peasants in the interest of foreign multinationals. UNORCA has vowed to continue the sit-in and hunger strike until their demands are met. The farmers were joined by a solidarity march on the monument on Thursday of last week.

When the hunger strike was initiated, UNORCA issued a statement explaining their actions. The statement, titled The Maize Manifesto, was released to the press and public on La Via Campesina’s website. The Manifesto expresses outrage at the previous administration’s gradual liberalization of industrialized transgenic agriculture under Felipe Calderón, the former president of Mexico.1 They are calling on new president, Enrique Nieto, to prevent all new permits allowing the use of GMOs in Mexico’s agricultural system.

Read the whole story at The International

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