Activists block US genetically engineered maize from offloading at Vera Cruz, Mexico
At 0650 two Greenpeace activists, from Argentina and Mexico,
attached themselves to the anchor chain of a 40,000 tonne shipment
of US GE contaminated maize destined for the port of Veracruz, the
largest port in Mexico, to reinforce the Mexican Government's
rights to reject US GE maize as of yesterday.
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety came into force - a treaty
which Mexico has ratified. The international community has adopted
this legally binding global instrument to safeguard the
environment, biological diversity and human health against the
irreversible risks posed by genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The Protocol clearly states that countries must take action to
prevent adverse effects of GMOs on the conservation and sustainable
use of biodiversity.
"The US dumping of genetically engineered maize in Mexico must
stop immediately," says Hector Magallon, Greenpeace campaigner. "We
are dealing with an emergency situation where one of the world's
most important staple food crops is at risk due to genetic
contamination, and where the heavily subsidized US exports are
devastating the livelihoods of thousands of Mexican farmers. This
cargo of contamination must be sent back to the US immediately and
all future imports containing GE maize must be banned."
Greenpeace is calling on the Mexican and other Governments to
ensure that the Biosafety Protocol prevails over the WTO and its
environmentally and socially destructive free trade rules," said
Magallon. The impact of the WTO's free trade regime on agriculture
is the most contentious issue at the Cancún ministerial meeting in
Cancun, Mexico. The meeting is polarizing on a north south debate
on the ability of the WTO rules to further development. The
Biosafety Protocol allows the developing countries to protect their
food supplies from corporate interests using the WTO rules to force
feed people to eat GMOs.
For countries in the South, free trade in agriculture is in fact
forced trade, where they are forced to accept massive export
dumping by the more powerful countries in the North. The Mexican
maize contamination case is seen by many as an alarming example of
what happens when countries in the South are forced to liberalize
and open their markets for subsidized agricultural exports from the
North. Mexico has been flooded with subsidised, animal feed grade
US maize, collapsing domestic maize prices in Mexico and
devastating the livelihoods of millions of maize farmers and their
communities.
"In Cancun the US is defending its continued dumping of crops
like maize on export markets at 30% below the costs of production
despite growing demands from the South to end dumping. At the same
time the US is defending the interests of agribusiness giants like
Monsanto by using the WTO as a political weapon to aggressively
attack GMO restrictions worldwide," says Magallon. "The dumping of
GE maize from the US threatens traditional and wild Mexican maize
varieties with irreversible genetic contamination."
Greenpeace first documented that GE maize had contaminated
Mexican maize in 1999, which led the Mexican government to slap a
ban on releases of GE maize as Mexico is the primary centre of
maize genetic diversity in the world. Maize varieties, developed
over millennia by indigenous farmers, represent one of the world's
most valuable reserves of genetic material for plant breeding - the
foundation for global food security. Last month Greenpeace
intercepted and blocked a trainload of US maize as it tried to
enter Mexico, demanding that the Mexican government undertake
immediately an assessment of the scope and magnitude of the GE
contamination in Mexico and declare an immediate halt to the
importation of GE maize.
VVPR info: Video available +316 53504721
Notes: Background briefings www.greenpeace.org/trade