Monsanto and DuPont-Pioneer Threaten Food Security in Mexico (La Jornada, Mexico)

La Jornada – Original Article (Spanish)
Translated By Kyle Shepard

The International Day of Protest Against Monsanto, convoked by a range of civil rights and environmental organizations, managed to attract shows of support in hundreds of cities and more than 50 countries, including the United States, Argentina, México, Japan, South Africa, Germany and Australia, among many others.

Significantly, this massive social mobilization, practically simultaneous around the world, was not on this occasion addressed to any state or financial institution. Rather, It was against a particular entity that holds a hegemonic and illegal position in the field of food production and biotechnology. This is particularly the case when it comes to the development and commercialization of genetically-modified maize; the enormity in power and scope of which puts it in a position to threaten biodiversity and food supplies for entire populations.  Read more. 

Refuting Monsanto's lies - UNORCA

National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA AC)
Americas Program Original Translation

Olegario Carrillo, the national leader of the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) initiated the second day of the encampment – a collective fasting in protest of the planting of transgenic corn in Mexico, camped out at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City – by refuting the lies propagated by Monsanto.  The federal government could validate these lies if it approves permits for the commercial planting of more than one million hectares of GM maize in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, as requested by Monsanto and other transnational seed companies.

1. Transgenic seeds have higher yields than conventional crops. FALSE.
Based on the records of thirteen years of GM crops in the U.S. it can be said that GMO crops have not increased yields. The yields of corn and soybeans (principal GMO crops) increased significantly during the last 15 years but the cause was not the use of transgenic seeds, but conventional breeding and other practices such as agroecology [i].

2. Transgenic seeds require fewer pesticides. FALSE. 
Between 1996 and 2008 we used an additional 144 million kilos of pesticides that would have been used in the absence of GMO crops. This represents an average increase of 356 grams of pesticide per hectare planted with GMO seeds.  The use of herbicide-tolerant GMO crops or RR increased by 31% between 2007 and 2008 due to the rapid expansion of herbicide resistant weeds and superweeds, virtually unknown before [ii].