Court Ruling a Victory for Mexico Farmers and Anti-GMO Activists

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Authors: Mercedes López Martínez and Ercilia Sahores

On March 8, 2016, Mexican farmers, consumers and activists scored a major victory when a federal appeals court ruled that genetically engineered corn can’t be grown in Mexico until a class action lawsuit, filed by scientists, consumers, farmers and activists has been resolved.

The March 8 ruling allows the biotech industry to continue experimental trials of GM corn, but with a new twist—the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) will now require regular assessments of the impact of the of the test crops on neighboring non-GM fields and human health.

This recent victory follows a seven-year battle that has drawn together a broad coalition of coalition of individuals and civil society organizations, including scientists, farming groups, beekeepers, indigenous groups, environmental groups, human rights groups and artists bound together by a single mission: to protect the integrity of Mexico’s most popular agricultural crop. The coalition, called Sin Maíz, No hay País (Without Corn, There is No Country), has for years been collecting scientific data about GMOs introduced in Mexico.

The Organic Consumers Association’s Mexico-based team, working through our sister organizations, Vía Orgánica and Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos, is proud to have played a role in achieving this victory. We also know that this is just the first of many legal hurdles we will have to overcome in our continued battle to defend the integrity and diversity of Mexico’s corn and its connection with an entire culture.

The history behind Monsanto’s Assault on Mexico’s Corn

In 2009, changes in Mexican law allowed biotech giants like Monsanto to conduct trials of GMO corn in approved regions of the country.

Two years later, in 2011, Monsanto and Syngenta asked for a permit to plant GM corn in several states in Northern Mexico. Not surprisingly, they found legal loopholes and sympathetic government officials. The imminent infiltration of GM corn in Mexico threatened Mexico’s ancient tradition of seed exchanges and seed banks. It also threatened to cross contaminate native corn crops, pollute the environment, destroy biodiversity, poison the people and bring poverty to small producers by privatizing corn production through the sale of proprietary patented seeds—just as industrial GMO crops have done in other parts of the world.

This new and imminent threat led to the creation of the 73-member Sin Maíz, No hay País Coalition which has since worked tirelessly to protect and defend Mexico’s traditional corn economy and culture. In July 2013, the coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the government’s process for permitting the planting of GM corn, on the basis that GM corn would threaten biodiversity for current and future generations.

Monsanto and Syngenta responded by hiring the best international and national law firms to fight off the coalition’s team of legal experts, some of whom worked pro bono. The coalition sought national and international funding. OCA has so far contributed $30,000 to support the struggle.

In 2014 and 2015, multinational agribusiness companies, led by Monsanto and Syngenta, filed a number of lawsuits in an attempt to defeat the coalition. They were unsuccessful and instead only strengthened the grassroots group, which gained increasing national and international attention.

As the coalitions’ class action suit gained momentum, it was challenged by more than 70 entities, including Syngenta, Pioneer, DuPont and Monsanto, governmental agencies such as the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) and SAGARPA.

The formal trial, which ultimately led to the March 8 ruling, began in January 2016.

A heritage worth protecting

Mexico is home to 59 native varieties of corn. The Mexican people have crafted over 600 unique corn-based dishes, creating a rainbow of colors and flavors that come from each unique variety. The story of Mexico’s most commonly produced grain dates back thousands of years, when corn was first domesticated in Mesoamerica. That’s when the relationship between human beings and plants first developed, giving birth to the center of genetic heritage and diversity of corn and a culturally and protein rich civilization.

So central to Mexico’s culture is corn, that it has been the subject of entire books. One of those books, “Men of Maize,” written by Miguel Ángel Asturias and based on the sacred book of the Mayan Popol Vuh, explores the deep connection between the Mexican people and teocintle, as the grandfather of corn

It’s a heritage Sin Maíz, No hay País is determined to vigilantly protect, despite this recent first-round victory. The coalitions demands will not ease until the federal courts:

  • Admit that, voluntarily or involuntarily, significant contamination of non-GM fields has already taken place.
  • Acknowledge that GMO crops affect the human right to conservation, sustainable use and fair and equal participation of biological diversity in native corn because they violate the Law on Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms.
  • Acknowledge that agricultural biodiversity will be highly affected by the release of GMO corn.
  • Declare the suspension of the introduction of transgenic maize in all its various forms, including experimental and pilot commercial plantings, in Mexico, birthplace of corn in the world.

For more information:

https://demandacolectivamaiz.mx/wp/
https://viaorganica.org/
https://www.sinmaiznohaypais.org/

Donate to keep Monsanto’s GMO corn out of Mexico.

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Mercedes López Martínez is the networking coordinator for Vía Orgánica.

Ercilia Sahores is Latin America Political Director for Regeneration International.

Will Allen & Michael Colby: Vermont’s GMO addiction – with or without a label

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Authors: Will Allen and Michael Colby

Vermont has proven itself to be a leader when it comes to showing its concern over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and food production. It was the first state in the nation to pass GMO-labeling legislation, forcing food corporations nationwide to scramble and prepare to meet the law’s requirements when it takes effect in July 2016. But, in many ways, the passage of this historic law has left a false impression that it “solved” the GMO problem in the state. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Vermont agriculture is dominated by GMOs, especially within the commodity dairy sector, which represents more than 70 percent of the state agricultural economy. Currently, there are more than 92,000 acres of GMO feed corn that are grown in Vermont, making it – by far – the state’s number one crop. More than 96 percent of all feed corn grown in Vermont is a GMO variety, and almost all of this GMO corn is used to feed dairy cows.

Ironically, Vermont’s GMO addiction is exempt from its own GMO labeling law, as the law specifically exempts dairy and meat products. So while the law will force mainstream food corporations to label GMOs in products like Cheetos and SpaghettiOs before coming into the state, it turns a blind eye to the GMO-derived dairy that is the primary ingredient in, for example, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Cabot’s cheddar cheese.

This is about more than the consumer’s right to know. It’s also about the impact GMO-centered agriculture is having on Vermont’s environment and wildlife, its role in the continued monopolization of the food supply, and the roadblocks it creates in the path toward a truly regenerative, eco-sensitive, and socially just form of agriculture in the state. The current domination of GMOs and industrial agriculture in Vermont dairy is, quite frankly, the elephant on the farm that few want to acknowledge.

The history of Vermont’s heavy adoption of industrial – or degenerative – forms of agriculture is also the history of its failure and decline. At every stage, beginning with chemical agriculture in the post-WWII era, the new techniques being promoted by the increasingly corporate and industrial agriculture came with mighty promises: Labor would be saved, yields would be increase, bugs and insects would be eliminated, and profits would soar. Just get in line, and follow the edicts coming out of the USDA and the agricultural extension centers.

KEEP READING IN VT DIGGER

The investment case for ecological farming

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Author: Paul McMahon

Farmland investing today

Farmland has emerged as a new asset class for investors over the past decade because of higher food prices. Historical returns have been good. However, commodity prices have dropped and farmland values are plateauing in many regions. In addition, most investment has gone into high-input, industrialised farming systems that are exposed to hidden risks. In future, investors will need to be smarter and more environmentally-aware to capture the opportunities.

The risks of industrial  agriculture

The profitability and sustainability of industrial agriculture are exposed to five major risks, which are set to intensify in coming decades:

  1. Exposure to high and volatile input costs
  2. Degrading natural assets such as soils and water reserves
  3. Vulnerability to a changing climate, especially extreme weather events
  4. Negative environmental externalities that will be increasingly taxed or regulated
  5. Shifting consumer trends, as people demand clean, green, healthy and tasty food
  6. Ecological farming: an attractive alternative

There is an alternative way to manage land that can minimise these risks, while increasing profitability. Ecological farming seeks to build soil health, minimise external inputs, recycle nutrients and energy, embrace diversity of crops and animals, and produce high value food and commodities. It is not necessarily organic (although it often can be), it can be practised on a commercial scale, and it is firmly science-based.

We have identified a number of proven systems that have investment merit. They include:

  • Holistic planned grazing for cattle and sheep
  • No-till cropping with diverse cover crops
  • Agroforestry systems
  • Low input pasture-based dairy
  • Certified organic farming in certain countries

Seven reasons to go ecological

There are a number of reasons why these types of systems can deliver superior risk-adjusted returns:

  1. Comparable or better yields in most cases
  2. Lower operating costs because of less reliance on external inputs
  3. Enhanced natural capital, with the opportunity to increase asset values by regenerating
    degraded land
  4. Climatic resilience because healthy soils cope better with droughts and floods
  5. Positive environmental externalities and the chance to be paid for them, for example through carbon credits
  6. The ability to sell to higher value markets such as organic or grass-fed
  7. Higher profitability with less volatility
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Biochars multifunctional role as a novel technology in the agricultural, environmental, and industrial sectors

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Authors: Jeff Novak, Kyoung S Ro, Yong Sik Ok, Gilbert C Sigua, Kurt Spokas, and Sophie Uchimiya

1. Introduction

The utilization of biochar as an amendment to improve soil health and the environment has been a catalyst for the recent global enthusiasm for advancing biochar production technology and its management (Atkinson et al., 2010; Verheijen et al., 2010). This rapid rise in understanding biochar technologies is a pro-active response to the anticipated stresses of meeting future global nutrition demands while also sustaining environmental quality. Hearty research efforts using biochar are focusing on improving soil health characteristics to obtain higher crop yields. Moreover, there is increasing realization that sustainable food security will be difficult to maintain considering future climatic shifts and the impact on agronomic and environmental systems. Employment of biochar as a specialized soil amendment provides a practical approach to address these anticipated problems in the agronomic and environmental sectors (Mukherjee and Lal, 2013; Zhang and Ok, 2014).

Biochar is produced by thermal pyrolysis of organic feedstocks under a very low oxygen atmosphere (Laird, 2008) or through hydrothermal carbonization of wet organic material by high pressure and mild temperatures (Libra et al., 2011). The thermal and hydrothermal processes, respectively, results in a product referred to as biochar and hydrochar. Both of these materials are highly porous, carbon [C] rich solids that contain a myriad of organic structures as well as inorganic elements. Biochars have been characterized using 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy as having a high proportion of highly-condensed aromatic graphene-like structures (Baldock and Smernik, 2002; Novak et al., 2009; Cao et al., 2011), which are known to increase soil C sequestration because of their resistance to microbial oxidation (Glaser et al., 2002; Sigua et al., 2014). The inorganic chemical composition of the ash material is an important soil fertility characteristic since
the ash is comprised of plant macro (e.g., N, Ca, K, P, etc.) as well as micro-nutrients (e.g., Cu Zn, B, etc.;Spokas et al., 2012; Ippolito et al., 2015). Besides boosting soil fertility conditions, biochar application to soils can increase their nutrient retention (Laird and Rogovska, 2015), improve water storage (Kinney et al., 2012; Novak et al., 2012), bind with pollutants (Uchimiya et al., 2010; Sun et al., 2011; Ahmad et al., 2014; Mohan et al., 2014), and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG;
Cayuela et al., 2014). These reports demonstrate that biochar can have multfunctional roles in the agricultural and environmental sectors.

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“Open Sesame” Shows the Importance of Seed Saving

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The seed saving movement is growing. Communities are banding together to save and share heirloom and open pollination seeds that are in danger of disappearing off the face of the Earth as a result of industrialized agriculture and multinational corporations that control the majority of our seed supply.

The documentary “Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds” by M. Sean Kaminsky seeks to inspire people about the importance of seed saving—and its urgency.

When you save seeds, you’re joining a chain of farmers, gardeners, and seed enthusiasts that dates back to the Stone Age—our civilization literally arose due to seed saving.

Early humans selected the best wild plants with which to feed themselves, and passed those varieties along to others by saving and sharing seeds.

Seeds are the foundation of life, from fruits and vegetables to grain and livestock feed—without them, we have no food. It’s estimated that upwards of 90 percent of our caloric intake directly or indirectly comes from seeds.

Age-old heirloom varieties are disappearing at an alarming rate—90 percent of the crop varieties grown 100 years ago are already gone. The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are in danger of extinction.

Why Seed Saving Is So Important

Four of the most important reasons to save seeds are the following:

  1. Seed Security: By saving your seeds, you control your seed and therefore your food supply—you aren’t depending on seed stores or catalogs for difficult to find seed. Hundreds of excellent plant varieties have been discontinued as big corporations have consolidated the seed industry and focused on more profitable varieties. Half of the vegetables grown today have no commercial sources—you have to get them through seed trades.4
  2. Regional Adaptation: Most commercially available seed has been selected because it performs fairly well across the entire country if given synthetic fertilizers. But when you save seed from your own best performing plants, on your land and in your own ecosystem, you gradually develop varieties better adapted to your own soil, climate, and growing conditions.
KEEP READING ON MERCOLA

How Carbon Farming Could Reverse Climate Change

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Author: Vera Liang Chang 

As the climate crisis heats up, agriculture is in the hot seat, not only as a contributor to climate change, but also as a potential solution. Eric Toensmeier has spent the last several years tracking both. A lecturer at Yale University, a senior fellow with Project Drawdown, and the author of several books on permaculture, Toensmeier is also the author of the newly-released book, The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security.

Toensmeier argues that when combined with immense reduction in fossil fuel emissions and adaptation strategies, carbon farming has the potential to return the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to the “magic number” of 350 parts per million, while feeding people, building more fertile soils, and contributing to ecosystem health.

We spoke with Toensmeier about his thoughts on agroforestry, what happened at the climate summit in Paris, and what strategies farmers, communities, and governments can take to launch carbon farming projects. This conversation has been edited for brevity.

When did you start working on carbon farming and why?

In 2009, I read the book Now or Never. Author Tim Flannery wrote that we need to mitigate climate change and a good way to do that is planting forests. But we can’t plant enough forests because we need land for agriculture. I thought to myself: there are trees that are agriculture; perhaps I have a contribution to make.

You note that agroforestry and perennial staple crops—strategies with immense potential to sequester carbon—have been given little attention to date. Why is that?

There are good reasons to focus on lower-sequestration strategies like no-till, organic annual cropping, and managed grazing. They don’t require farmers to make big changes to what they do, they don’t require people to change their diets, and they don’t require us to add unfamiliar foods to our food system. For example, an animal raised in a managed grazing system is raised differently than in a conventional system, but the cheese is still more or less the same. Moving into a fully perennial system would require fundamental transformation of our food system, from development to technologies. The notion that agriculture can incorporate trees—let alone the notion that agriculture be based on trees—is still new for most of us. Agroforestry produces only a tiny percentage of our food in the U.S.

KEEP READING ON CIVIL EATS

The Role of Ruminants in Reducing Agriculture’s Carbon Footprint in North America

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Authors: W.R. Teague, S. Apfelbaum, R. Lal, U.P. Kreuter, J. Rowntree, C.A. Davies, R. Conser, M. Rasmus- sen, J. Hatfield, T. Wang, F. Wang, and P. Byck

Abstract: Owing to the methane (CH4) produced by rumen fermentation, ruminants are a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) and are perceived as a problem.We propose that with appro- priate regenerative crop and grazing management, ruminants not only reduce overall GHG emissions, but also facilitate provision of essential ecosystem services, increase soil carbon (C) sequestration, and reduce environmental damage. We tested our hypothesis by examining biophysical impacts and the magnitude of all GHG emissions from key agricultural production activities, including comparisons of arable- and pastoral-based agroecosystems. Our assessment shows that globally, GHG emissions from domestic ruminants represent 11.6% (1.58 Gt C y–1) of total anthropogenic emissions, while cropping and soil-associated emissions contribute 13.7% (1.86 Gt C y–1).The primary source is soil erosion (1 Gt C y–1), which in the United States alone is estimated at 1.72 Gt of soil y–1. Permanent cover of forage plants is highly effective in reducing soil erosion, and ruminants consuming only grazed forages under appropriate management result in more C sequestration than emissions. Incorporating forages and ruminants into regeneratively managed agroecosystems can elevate soil organic C, improve soil ecological function by minimizing the damage of tillage and inorganic fertilizers and biocides, and enhance biodiversity and wildlife habitat. We conclude that to ensure long- term sustainability and ecological resilience of agroecosystems, agricultural production should be guided by policies and regenerative management protocols that include ruminant grazing. Collectively, conservation agriculture supports ecologically healthy, resilient agroecosystems and simultaneously mitigates large quantities of anthropogenic GHG emissions.

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Cover Crops, a Farming Revolution With Deep Roots in the Past

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Author: Stephanie Storm

When Mark Anson came home with his hair on fire after a seminar on the seemingly soporific topic of soil health, his younger brother, Doug, was skeptical.

What had Mark lit up was cover crops: fields of noncash crops like hairy vetch and cereal rye that act on soil like a nourishing facial after the harvest.

Mark, 60, and his two brothers, together with assorted sons and sons-in-law, run Anson Farms, a big commercial soybean and corn operation in Indiana and Illinois. Concern about the soil quality of the family’s fields had nagged at him for some time. “Our corn was wilting when temperatures hit 103 degrees,” he said, and such heat isn’t so unusual in the summer. “I felt like I had a gorilla on my shoulder.” What he learned about the benefits of cover crops gave him hope.

But to Doug, planting some noncommercial crops seemed an antiquated practice, like using a horse-drawn plow. Cover crops had long been replaced by fertilizers. Still, he shared his brother’s concern about their soil. Its texture was different, not as loamy as it had once been, and a lot of it was running off into ditches and other waterways when it rained.

So in 2010 the family decided to humor Mark by sowing some 1,200 acres, which Mark describes as highly eroded farmland, with wheat cleanings and cereal rye. Additionally, they spread some cover crops to eroded areas in a few fields.

KEEP READING IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

¡Juntos podemos enfriar el planeta!

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[ English | Español ]

Desde hace muchos años La Vía Campesina y GRAIN han venido denunciando como el sistema agroindustrial de alimentos es el responsable de la mitad de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Sin embargo los gobiernos del mundo no asumen enfrentar profundamente estos problemas y estamos llegando a la Cumbre que se realizará en París en el mes de diciembre sin compromisos efectivos para hacerlo.

Este nuevo video de La Vía Campesina y GRAIN aporta los elementos necesarios para comprender como está impactando este sistema agroindustrial de alimentos en nuestro clima y al mismo tiempo nos cuenta como podemos actuar para cambiar el rumbo y comenzar a enfriar el planeta. ¡Y este es un desafío para todos nosotros!

Desde el continente americano, Asia, Europa y África, venimos denunciando las falsas soluciones para el cambio climático que representan los cultivos transgénicos, la economía verde y la “agricultura climáticamente inteligente”. Nosotros decimos alto y fuerte: son los campesinos y campesinas, los pequeños y las pequeñas productoras quienes, juntos con los consumidores que escogen productos agroecológicos provenientes de mercados locales, quienes tienen la solución a la crisis climática. Tal es el mensaje que llevaremos a la XXI Conferencia Climática en París, en diciembre próximo. ¡Sumate a esta lucha! ¡Compartí este video!

Más información en:

tv.viacampesina.org
viacampesina.org
grain.org

LEE MÁS ARTÍCULOS EN ESPAÑOL

Together, we can cool the planet!

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[ English | Español ]

For many years, La Vía Campesina and GRAIN have been telling the world about how the agroindustrial food system causes half of all greenhouse gas emissions. But the world’s governments are refusing to face these problems head on, and the Paris Summit in December is approaching without any effective commitment to doing so on their part.

This new video by La Vía Campesina and GRAIN gives you the information you need to understand how the agroindustrial food system is impacting our climate, and at the same time what we can do to change course and start cooling the planet. And every single one of us is part of the solution!

In the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa, for many years, we have been criticizing false solutions to climate change like GMOs, the “green” economy, and “climate-smart” agriculture. No two ways about it: the solution to the climate crisis is in the hands of small farmers, along with consumers who choose agroecological products from local markets. This is the message we’re taking to the Paris Climate Change Conference this December. Join the campaign! Share this video!

MORE INFORMATION AT:

tv.viacampesina.org
viacampesina.org
grain.org