News from South of the Border!
This past week the Girls Club has had small group traveling in Mexico as part of our summer “Couture Camp” programming. While we’ve mostly been documenting Mayan fashion trends and enjoying colorful festivals in the towns of Chamula and Zinnecantan Chiapas, we have also been learning about some serious food justice issues. Its all about corn and it affects our CSA farmers in the Hudson as much as it affects local farmers in Chiapas. Today in San Cristobal we documented a powerful symbolic protest against Monsanto.
What’s Monsanto? Well its no santo that’s for sure! Monsanto one of the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations, that stockpiles and patents native crop seeds while also engineering genetically modified (GM) crop seeds. They have a team of scientists that genetically modify seeds, patent them, and then sell them to farmers to create a vicious cycle, whereby the farmers tend to loose out, firm’s profits roll in, and consumers are left with wacko corn!
Corn is worth fighting for! In recent days there have been public protests throughout Mexico as farmers speak out against the Mexican government’s decision to allow cultivation of GM corn, despite the fact that many environmentalists say these GM seeds could ruin the nation’s native crop. The government has been under intense pressure from Monsanto, and other giant seed companies, who have been trying for years to introduce their transgenic corn seed varieties into the Mexican market. For many protesters, it is a question of protecting the biodiversity of Mexican plantlife and the right of Mexico to protect the food supply of its population (“food sovereignty”).
The movement to protect Mexico’s maize is solid. “Without corn and without beans there is no Country” is a campaign launched in 2007 that unites some 300 civil society organizations in Mexico representing rural and indigenous (Via Campesina), environmental (Greenpeace), human rights, and even consumer groups. It’s goal is to remove maize and beans from the commercial agreements under NAFTA and also to ban the cultivation of GM maize in Mexico. The Network to Defend Native Maize declares that “United in the face of renewed threats to our native seed stock, to our food, to our rights and to our way of life…”: read full declaration here
Looks like the revolutionary spirit is still strong in down in Chiapas!
Here is an image from this fascinating symbolic protest we witnessed today.
In solidarity!
- Lee
Chiapas Journal: Monsanto
News from South of the Border!
This past week the Girls Club has had small group traveling in Mexico as part of our summer “Couture Camp” programming. While we’ve mostly been documenting Mayan fashion trends and enjoying colorful festivals in the towns of Chamula and Zinnecantan Chiapas, we have also been learning about some serious food justice issues. Its all about corn and it affects our CSA farmers in the Hudson as much as it affects local farmers in Chiapas. Today in San Cristobal we documented a powerful symbolic protest against Monsanto.
What’s Monsanto? Well its no santo that’s for sure! Monsanto one of the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations, that stockpiles and patents native crop seeds while also engineering genetically modified (GM) crop seeds. They have a team of scientists that genetically modify seeds, patent them, and then sell them to farmers to create a vicious cycle, whereby the farmers tend to loose out, firm’s profits roll in, and consumers are left with wacko corn!
Corn is worth fighting for! In recent days there have been public protests throughout Mexico as farmers speak out against the Mexican government’s decision to allow cultivation of GM corn, despite the fact that many environmentalists say these GM seeds could ruin the nation’s native crop. The government has been under intense pressure from Monsanto, and other giant seed companies, who have been trying for years to introduce their transgenic corn seed varieties into the Mexican market. For many protesters, it is a question of protecting the biodiversity of Mexican plantlife and the right of Mexico to protect the food supply of its population (“food sovereignty”).
The movement to protect Mexico’s maize is solid. “Without corn and without beans there is no Country” is a campaign launched in 2007 that unites some 300 civil society organizations in Mexico representing rural and indigenous (Via Campesina), environmental (Greenpeace), human rights, and even consumer groups. It’s goal is to remove maize and beans from the commercial agreements under NAFTA and also to ban the cultivation of GM maize in Mexico. The Network to Defend Native Maize declares that “United in the face of renewed threats to our native seed stock, to our food, to our rights and to our way of life…”: read full declaration here
Looks like the revolutionary spirit is still strong in down in Chiapas!
Here is an image from this fascinating symbolic protest we witnessed today.
In solidarity!
- Lee