Monsanto still trying to force it's GM corn on Mexico

[nosmokes]

edit because i can't type...

as if it's not bad enoughthe US w/ it's Nafta BS hasn't already destroyed thousands of mexican maize producers by shipping subsidized GM garbage down there cheaper than they grow it, and with all of the environmental and social costs that go along with it that are never discussed except for lou dobbs scxreaming about an invasion on our southern border. meanwhile, you can't find a real tortilla in mexico anymore, just the same tasteless flat rubbery pieces of shit that you get up here. gone are the slightly thick, chewy corn cakes that you wrapped around thick stews and sauces in little tortillerias in every village and hole in the road in baja and sonora, where the food was made from what was grown nearby. so now that we've taken their livelihood and we're building a fence forcing them to cross the desert in a virtual death march to get a shitty job with lousy wages and deplorable conditions just so their families can survive, let's go ahead and gnail 'em with the hat trick and force them to grow their own poisoned food, eh? after all, they're only the people that first cultivated corn as a food, seems rather fitting that monsanto should kill them with it, in some sort of dark karmic way.
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original-IPS
ENVIRONMENT:
Monsanto Stands Firm on GM Maize in Mexico

Diego Cevallos* - Tierramérica

MEXICO CITY, Nov 10 (IPS) - The powerful biotech corporation Monsanto, which anti-genetic modification activists charge is corrupt, maintains that it has a positive image around the world and announces that it will continue to fight to ensure that Mexico, birthplace of maize, will open its doors to transgenic varieties of the grain.
In an interview with Tierramérica in Mexico City, Eduardo Pérez, director of technology development for Monsanto in northern Latin America, said that although "activism has created a mistaken perception of us," it does not affect the company's commercial performance.

In 2005, some 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries planted genetically modified (GM) crops over 400 million hectares. Most of the transgenic seed was produced by Monsanto.

The corporation has been accused of pressuring and bribing government officials, of going after farmers who fail to pay royalties to Monsanto for seed production, of altering scientific reports, and even of having taken part in creating agent orange, the chemical weapon that became infamous during the Vietnam War (1964-1975).

The representative from Monsanto, a company that rarely grants press interviews, denies many of those charges, but does acknowledge that there was a case of bribery. Pérez announced that the firm does not plan to leave Mexico, despite the Vicente Fox government's ban on GM maize.

TIERRAMERICA: In October the Mexican government refused, for the third time since 2005, to allow experimental crops of Monsanto's genetically modified maize. What will the company do?

EDUARDO PEREZ: We made the requests at the initiative of the government itself, because they needed our seeds to carry out experiments. We don't know in detail the arguments, but if they are reasonable we'll accept them. It's necessary to obtain scientific information in a responsible way, so that officials can decide whether or not commercial cultivation of transgenic maize would be of benefit.

TIERRAMERICA: There are still regulations pending, which need to be approved before these crops will be allowed, but despite this your company is pressuring the authorities.

PEREZ: We are not pressuring, we are only doing our job. We are focused on providing information, and of course we have an interest in crop experimentation. That is why we are talking with decision-makers in order to determine what they need, if they have all the elements and if we can help in any way. We maintain that for experimentation it is not necessary to have the complete regulatory system in place.
~snip~
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complete article here

[Jcrowley]

1. Monsanto is evil

K&R

[texpatriot2004]

5. Yes they are evil and my what a nice poster you have there. nm

[texpatriot2004]

2. Your title reads "Monsato" it should be "Monsanto" :-) nm

[nosmokes]

3. muchas gracias;) n/t

[texpatriot2004]

4. No problem. Thanks for this post. nm

[soothsayer]

6. you mean Monsatan, don't you?

[Recursion]

9. Ah, Monsatan

Not to be confused with Arch-Devil of the Midlands.

ADM: Pricefixers to the world.

[soothsayer]

7. we should build the stupid border wall with it. They won't eat

their way thru that vile stuff, lol

[YOY]

8. Where is Santo when you need him??? He would not stand for this!

I could see the movie now: "Santo: Contra La Maize Mutano!" (In technicolor!)

[cascadiance]

10. Are they still trying to force Mexico to push using HFCS instead of sugar?

Imported Mexican coke is a prized possession, since it uses local cane sugar instead of HFCS, which of course many of us know here looks to be linked to the increase of our incidence of diabetes in younger people. For a while, Mexico had taxes to incentivize bottlers locally to use it's own locally produced cane sugar instead of corn syrup products from the U.S., which U.S. corporations were trying to go to folks like the WTO to force them to do so. I hope that's still not being done. It is not only a problem with corporations and economics, but also ours and others' health too!