Spanish farmers sab GM maize

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

Dur­ing the sec­ond week of August 2011 an unknown num­ber of peo­ple have destroyed part of an exper­i­men­tal field of GM maize seeds owned by Pio­neer. The area locat­ed between the towns of Val­divia and Zur­baran had been request­ed by the com­pa­ny to be opened to the fol­low­ing GMO maize vari­eties: 1057, 59122 maize, NK603. This field is one of the three request­ed this year by Mon­san­to and Pio­neer com­pa­nies to exper­i­ment with trans­genic corn.

This action is a small response to the impo­si­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs) by biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and the state. Since GM began to be exper­i­ment­ed, approved and mar­ket­ed heav­i­ly, its cre­ators and pro­mot­ers have stat­ed that GM would be able to end hunger or to safe­guard human health and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a clean­er and more effi­cient agri­cul­ture. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth.

These GMOs are imposed in a con­text of: large cor­po­ra­tions fight­ing for monop­oly con­trol of seeds and chem­i­cals, mono­cul­tures, genet­ic pol­lu­tion, the dis­ap­pear­ance of small and medi­um farm­ers, liq­ui­da­tion of local economies, the dis­ap­pear­ance of indige­nous vari­eties, large dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, waste and water pol­lu­tion, the expul­sion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

These GMOs are not com­pat­i­ble with oth­er forms of pro­duc­tion and social orga­ni­za­tion based on the recov­ery of tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture that meet the needs of the peo­ple, not mar­kets, and do not over­flow the bound­aries of ecosys­tems, cou­pled with the will to escape the illu­so­ry link between hap­pi­ness and con­sump­tion.

Mod­els are clear­ly need­ed in a hun­gry and warm­ing world due to the sub­mis­sion to the mar­ket and total­i­tar­i­an states. There­fore these GMOs do not come to ful­fill the ben­e­fits, but rep­re­sent anoth­er twist to the agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, which will, among oth­er things, com­plete­ly expro­pri­ate the people’s their abil­i­ty to feed them­selves. For the final deci­sion of the approval and mar­ket­ing of GMOs, the state cre­at­ed the Nation­al Biosafe­ty Com­mit­tee (NBC). 

    Inside there are sev­en rep­re­sen­ta­tive NBC sci­en­tists, many of them linked to the biotech indus­try and pro-GM lob­by. This body is for the indus­try, not biose­cu­ri­ty, as evi­denced by the grow­ing num­ber of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in wheat and corn crops. In whole regions of the state, genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in crops such as the above named is inevitable.

    Out­side our bor­ders, these GMOs have been respon­si­ble for all types of dis­as­ters such as famine, defor­esta­tion, poi­son­ing, aller­gies and oth­er ill­ness­es due to con­sump­tion as well as a myr­i­ad of con­straints to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and farm­ers by biotech com­pa­nies, not to men­tion real mas­sacres caused by the man­u­fac­ture and use of chem­i­cals need­ed for this agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, of which GM is its ulti­mate expres­sion. To say GM is not say­ing “no!” to the evils and injus­tices that we have cit­ed;  “no!” to impos­ing: “no!” to the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of life; “no!” to the mad­ness of progress.

   The take action against GMOs is a legit­i­mate strug­gle of all peo­ple, symp­toms of com­mon sense and the need for pro­found social change, the result of being aware of the dan­ger to the Earth (and every­thing that gets penal­ized) in the hands of cap­i­tal­ism. Those who sow and reap trans­genic pro­motes resis­tance.

Farm­ers (campesin@s*) in Extremadu­ra in the strug­gle.
Extremadu­ra, Sep­tem­ber 2011
Indi­vid­ual farm­ers (campesin@s) in Extremadurs

*Translator’s note: Campesin@ is an untrans­lat­able word in Span­ish, which usu­al­ly con­notes small, com­mu­ni­ty based, sus­tain­able and sub­sis­tence farm­ers, although it can also be used in ref­er­ence to field work­ers under a giant cor­po­ra­tion like Chiq­ui­ta or Dole.