Mexico: Greenpeace, government collide over transgenics

by Diego Cevallos

Mexico City, 28 Aug 2001 (IPS) - The Mexican government and Greenpeace collided over the issue of transgenic crops after deputy minister of Agriculture Victor Villalobos defended such technology and described the international watchdog as a group of “environmental terrorists.”

The official’s “accusations were unjustifiably aggressive, and his arguments in favour of transgenics were totally mistaken,” Greenpeace Mexico spokeswoman Cecilia Navarro told IPS Tuesday.

Villalobos took aim against the group in an interview with the daily newspaper Reforma, in which he announced that the government would promote the production of transgenic crops.

The deputy minister’s statements cut short an incipient understanding between local authorities and Greenpeace on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that began to emerge when President Vicente Fox took office in December.

His remarks also showed that the government had abandoned the neutral position it had previously expressed on transgenic crops, which are opposed by environmentalists due to supposed risks to human health and the environment.

Villalobos, who argued that Mexico’s food security depended on transgenic crops, said his government would support research in that area.

“These organisations [like Greenpeace] that protest, make their living off of environmental terrorism, and then lash out against transgenics,” he charged.

Navarro accused the Fox administration of caving in to pressure from transnational corporations that produce transgenic seeds, and said her group would not flag in its efforts to fight GMOs.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups say transgenic crops pose a threat to biodiversity, the livelihoods of small farmers in poor countries, and consumer health.

Although there is no conclusive research, some studies indicate that in the long term, the consumption of transgenic products could cause genetic mutations and unknown diseases.

Those opposed to GMOs also warn that transgenic crops could modify native seeds, which would deal an irreversible blow to developing countries, where more than 80% of the planet’s biodiversity is concentrated.

The proponents of biotechnology, the science that permits the genes of one species to be introduced into another, say it can create low-cost, fast-growing crops that have a high protein content and need few agro-chemicals.

Villalobos argued that Mexico must not fall behind in the field of biotechnology, and assured that all research on GMOs would be conducted with the necessary precautions and environmental protections.

“If we continue to practice the farming methods used today, meeting domestic demand for food will cost us the destruction of the soil, fighting over water and, in short, the exhaustion of our natural resources,” he maintained.

Mexico is already experimenting with transgenic corn, potatoes, cotton, soybeans, papaya, tomatoes, pineapple and tobacco. But commercial cultivation of GMOs has not yet been approved, as Congress continues to hold heated debates on the issue.

There are organic alternatives that are safer and more profitable than transgenics, but pressure from the transnationals is heavy, and developing countries get caught up in their game, said Silvia Ribeiro, the Canada-based Rural Advancement Foundation International’s (RAFI) representative for Latin America.

The only transgenic crops grown commercially in the world are soybeans, corn, cotton and rapeseed, the seeds of which are produced by the multinationals Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Aventis and Dow.

Ninety-eight percent of the area planted in transgenic crops is in Argentina, Canada and the US. Monsanto produces the seeds that account for 94% of the total area under cultivation.

The controversy over GMOs flared up in July, when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) declared that the seeds could become a key to fighting hunger in the world.

Although the environmental impact of transgenic crops has not been proven, precautions must be taken, said the UNDP - which added, however, that there were 850 million chronically hungry people in the world who could benefit by GMOs.

The UNDP’s statement, the first favourable pronouncement on transgenics to come out of the United Nations, raised an outcry among environmentalists, who complained that the only thing the declaration achieved was to give a new boost to multinationals just when they seemed to be losing momentum.

The area under transgenic crop cultivation in the world grew 25-fold between 1996 and 2000, but growth plunged to 8% in the past two years, compared to 44% growth from 1988 to 1999.

Environmentalists around the world want products containing transgenic crops to be clearly labelled, to warn consumers that they are ingesting GMOs. – SUNS4957

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