Reuters | November 16, 1999 | Michael Christie
MEXICO CITY - According to this story, Mesoamerican Indian peasants gave corn to the world, developing the plant over thousands of years by mixing various strains of wild maize.
Now the heirs of those campesinos say they are being robbed of their legacy by giant multinational firms. Species that once belonged to no one and which fed millions of poor families across Latin America have suddenly been copyrighted.
The story says that using genetic engineering, Monsanto Co., Novartis AG, Astra Zeneca Plc. and other companies are adding a new gene to original plants and patenting the result.
What is more, the revolution dawning in agriculture, like the Industrial Revolution in England, could, the story adds, herald a new Ice Age for small farmers as their ancient ways become obsolete and the new high technology remains beyond their reach.
Corn was born in Mexico and Central America. Mexican lore has it that the gods made men from maize after mud failed to do the trick. Wild corn, called teocintle, grows in abundance and there are more than 200 natural varieties of the plant.
Pumpkins, cotton, cacao, chili, papaya, avocado, vanilla, sweet potato and other plants are all native to Mexico, which claims to be No. 4 in the world in biodiversity.
The story says that small farmers could benefit from higher productivity and starvation may become just a bad memory. But campesinos, using ox-drawn plows and living in mud huts little changed in 500 years, fear they may be left by the wayside. And they say that is not fair.
Ernesto Ladron de Guevara Alafita of Mexico's National Union of Autonomous Regional Campesino Organizations (UNORCA) was quoted as saying, "They're expropriating what was ours. We handed these things over and now they are patenting them."
In Latin America, home of diverse microclimates ranging from Mexico's northern deserts to the rain forests of the Amazon, the debate about genetically engineered food hinges less on ethics than on sovereignty and ownership of some of the world's richest biodiversity.
Patents, given the all-clear in 1980 by the U.S. Supreme Court, are one of the most controversial aspects of GMOs in Mexico. While Brazil is defending its natural resources, others are barely beginning to consider the implications.
C.S Prakash, professor of Plant Molecular Genetics and director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University in Alabama, was cited as saying companies had a right to try to recoup the millions they invest in GMO development, but he added the resentment generated by the firms claiming ownership of a common good would be more damaging to the cause of biotechnology than a few million dollars less in profits, adding, "There is a great unfairness and inequity here. Why don't they just give the technology away? It won't hurt them and the PR windfall would be incredible."
Apart from the ownership issue, critics say Latin America's biodiversity could be threatened. In the absence of even the most basic regulations in much of Latin America, there is no way to stop pollen from a GMO cotton, potato, or corn plant from reaching a wild variety.
Liza Covantes, a biologist with Greenpeace in Mexico, one of the most vociferous opponents of GMOs, was quoted as saying, "Any exotic organism placed in the environment is a time bomb."
Critics also say GMOs were created for farmers in Western countries with little biodiversity and no one knows how they will affect the environment in tropical latitudes, where plant and animal life is diverse.
