Amid Controversy, State of Nayarit Grants Additional GMO Planting to Monsanto The News
go to original June 10, 2013

In February, thousands across Mexico demanded their government reject permits for GMO corn while Monsanto defends their patent on life in U.S. Supreme Court. (TheRealNews)

Last week the Nayarit state government approved an increase in the area that Monsanto, a U.S. corporation producing pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), could use to experiment with GMO crops. The company now has 7,772 square meters (83,000 square feet) up from their original 400.

“Those 7,772 square meters are going to finish off local varieties of corn,” local farmers spokesman Federico Langarica Chavarín said.

Monsanto is at the center of a worldwide controversy over farming practices.

Sympathizers say that their use of cutting-edge technology helps farmers produce higher yields, while critics point to the negative environmental impacts of their crops and their treatment of farmers. Pesticide-resistant crops, for example, lead to more liberal use of pesticide in fields.

“These experiments have poisoned the land and contaminated the water,” Langarica Chavarín said.

Monsanto has also sued farmers for growing their patented crops without a permit, something that happens when GMO seeds blow onto their land and contaminate their seed stock or suppliers mix Monsanto products with standard seeds without informing farmers.

Contamination of local strains is a common fear in Mexico, where corn was first domesticated and has since become a symbol of national identity. The country is home to 59 different corn varieties, the largest number in the world.

Monsanto’s so-called Terminator seeds also grow into plants that are sterile after a single harvest.

“With GMOs you won’t be selecting seeds (after the harvest), you would be buying them,” farmer and activist Héctor Mendoza Rosas said at an anti-Monsanto protest in Mexico City last month. Langarica Chavarín agrees that the company exploits farmers. “Monsanto sells their hybrid corn for more than 222 pesos ($17) per kilo,” he said, “but they pay the farmers less than four pesos.”

He asked for local and federal authorities to help fight Monsanto’s exploitation of farmers and contamination of the environment.

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