Act of aggression plants Mexican seeds of rebellion

By Trevor Wells
Farm­ers’ Legal Action Group-​South Africa

An FAO press release on 1 March 2010 quot­ing, Mod­ibo Tra­ore, FAO Assis­tant Director-​General, address­ing the inter­na­tional tech­ni­cal con­fer­ence on Agri­cul­tural Biotech­nolo­gies in Devel­op­ing Coun­tries in Guadala­jara, Mex­ico, and imply­ing that “the inno­va­tions in agri­cul­ture include highly suc­cess­ful rice hybrids for Africa that have dou­bled rice yields, the use of arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion to raise dairy cat­tle milk yields in Bangladesh” has caused a sharp and angered reaction.

“The breed­ing of new strains of food by nat­ural selec­tion of traits in the plant breed­ing field or in live­stock breed­ing has noth­ing to do with the adul­ter­ation of the sacred maize seeds with patented genes from non-​related bac­te­ria.” said Sin Mais No Hay Pais (No Maize No Earth), a national organ­i­sa­tion campign­ing for the pro­tec­tion of the native maize orig­i­nat­ing from Mex­ico. They pro­claimed in anger, “We have been prac­tic­ing plant and ani­mal breed­ing for thou­sands of years. We have been mak­ing butter,cream and cheese from milk for thou­sands of years. We have been mak­ing beer and wine and tequila for thou­sands of years. Who are they to come and tell us about biotech­nol­ogy?” “Who are they to tell us that the inser­tion of bac­te­ria into our sacred seed is breeding? ”

“We take it as an act of aggres­sion, as a pro­found lack of respect, and as an affront, that the Food & Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion of the United Nations (FAO) has decided to meet in Mex­ico with gov­ern­ments and the pri­vate sec­tor, under the false argu­ment that “biotech­nol­ogy can ben­e­fit peas­ants in poor coun­tries” — as stated today in a decep­tive offi­cial press release (http://​www​.fao​.org/​n​e​w​s​/​s​t​o​r​y​/​e​n​/​i​t​e​m​/​4​0​3​9​0​/​i​c​o​de/ (http://www NULL.fao NULL.org/​news/​story/​en/​item/​40390/​icode/​)).”

58 coun­tries have rat­i­fied the the Inter­na­tional Assess­ment of Agri­cul­tural Knowl­edge, Sci­ence and Tech­no­log­i­cal for Development.(IAASTD), which is the most com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment of agri­cul­ture and food secu­rity ever under­taken with a the engage­ment of 400 sci­en­tists and agri-​experts over 4 years with two peer reviews. The IAASTD out­comes calls for land reform, agro-​ecological tech­niques (proven to enhance farm­ers’ adap­tive capac­ity and resilience to envi­ron­men­tal stresses such as cli­mate change and water scarcity), the build­ing of local economies equi­table dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems and farmer-​led par­tic­i­pa­tory breed­ing pro­grams. The IAASDT was spon­sored by the FAO. The report was adopted on Johan­nes­burg in 2009. The only sig­nif­i­cant dis­sent­ing par­ties to the report were Mon­santo and the United States who walked out when pri­or­ity was not given to their hand­ful of indus­try experts who believed that large scale indus­trial plant­ing of GM crops was the answer to cli­mate change.. It is clear that these same forces have now hijacked the FAO and added insult to injury by hold­ing their con­fer­ence in Mexico

La Via Campesina (http://viacampesina NULL.org/​en/​index NULL.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=876:it-is-an-act-of-aggression-for-the-fao-to-meet-in-mexico-to-promote-gmos&catid=22:biodiversity-and-genetic-resources&Itemid=37 ) groups together orga­ni­za­tions of peas­ants, fam­ily farm­ers, indige­nous peo­ples, farm work­ers, women and rural youth from some 70 coun­tries world­wide, rep­re­sent­ing about 500 mil­lion fam­i­lies of women and men of the land added their voice.

“We are those who pro­duce the major­ity of the food con­sumed in this world.”

“We can only con­clude that, rather than feed­ing the hun­gry, they are only inter­ested in feed­ing their own greed. But as Gandhi said, “the Earth pro­vides enough to sat­isfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

For us farm­ers, the act of plant­ing our native maize, and defend­ing it, is an act of resis­tance, and an act of rebel­lion against an unjust sys­tem. But is also an act of hope. Hope because we know that solu­tions to the cri­sis are to be found in food sov­er­eignty and sus­tain­able peas­ant, indige­nous and fam­ily farm agri­cul­ture, and we know that these seeds of rebel­lion that we plant, are also the seeds of that other and bet­ter world we want.”

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