Damage Caused by GM Crops in LatAm Makes Case for Their Exclusion in Mexico Angelica Enciso L. - La Jornada
go to original July 3, 2013

On World Day Against Monsanto, a nutrition group from the “Escuela de Cultura Popular de los Martires de ’68” displays posters celebrating the autonomy of indigenous Zapatista communities for whom corn is an essential crop. (Andalusia Knoll/Upside Down World)

Since cultivation of transgenic crops was introduced seventeen years ago, the promise that they were going to reduce the use of pesticides was not met. What happened instead was an "exponential increase in the use of pesticides in countries that have adopted the technology", said thirty organizations belonging to the Network for a GMO-Free [genetically modified organisms] Latin American.

They also rejected the intention of the companies to cultivate 3 million hectares [7.4 million acres] of transgenic corn in Mexico, which they considered to be "an unprecedented event in the history of agriculture, since it would be the first time that devastation of such magnitude might occur in one of the centers of origin [maize, corn] and for a crop that feeds humanity".

In a statement, the network claimed that in the Southern Cone [Argentina, Chile, Uruguay], the glyphosate-resistant transgenic soybean covers 475,700 square kilometers [183,669 square miles], and the surface is sprayed with a "cocktail of pesticides, including glyphosate", which affects about 10 million people who live in areas where crops are sprayed.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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