Joint Declaration in Defense of our Biodiversity, Seed and Food Freedom – Resisting GMO Imperialism
Defending our Seed and Food Sovereignty
Seeds are the first link in the food chain. They embody our heritage and enfold the future evolution of life. It is our inherent duty and responsibility to protect our seeds and pass them on to future generations. The cultivation of seeds and their free exchange among farmers have been the basis for maintaining biodiversity and our food security. Today, our seed sovereignty is threatened by intellectual property rights and new GMO technologies that have transformed seeds from a commons shared by farmers, to a commodity under the control and monopoly of agribusiness corporations. To have control over seeds is to have control over our lives, our food and our freedom.
Over the last few decades, GMO crops have been imposed in countries all over the world, advertised as a solution to food insecurity and the malnutrition crisis. However, hunger, disease and malnutrition have increased, while biodiversity has declined and toxins have spread. GMO imperialism has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of small farmers and biodiversity in centers of origin. These centers of origin of biodiversity are the cradles of the world’s food supply, and the protection against plague, climate challenges, natural disasters or other hindrances to food production.
In Mexico, which is the center of origin of maize, just as in other centers of biodiversity, there has been a long struggle by society and organized communities against this GMO imperialism threatening the subsistence and culture of native peoples. To date, Mexican society has achieved a ban on the planting of GM maize in Mexico through a class action lawsuit filed against the companies Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta and Corteva Agriscience. This ban is still in force.
Recently, the Mexican government issued an executive order that proposes the gradual prohibition of the use of glyphosate and the use of GM maize in tortillas, a staple food. GMOs compromise access to healthy, sustainable, culturally appropriate foods free of genetically modified organisms. Faced with this decision, the U.S. government, based on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA), has requested a dispute settlement panel to reject the order.
Mexico is the protector of the biocultural diversity developed over millennia, and shared by peasants around the world. Mexico therefore urgently requires our support and solidarity in the face of this GMO imperialism.
All over the world, citizens are rising against the unscientific, undemocratic, anti-ecological imposition of GMOs by corporations and the US government. The first generation of GMOs has failed. But corporations continue to impose gene-edited organisms, or new GMOs, in centers of diversity. They continue to shift their narrative towards framing nature and biodiversity as commodities for commercialization and patent monopolies.
Agribusiness and biotech giants are attempting to bypass biosafety regulations by quietly making changes to GMO regulation around the world, in order to promote these new GMOs under new acronyms, such as NBTs (New Breeding Techniques), NGTs (New Genomic Techniques), or TEAs (Techniques of Assisted Evolution). These new GMOs have been silently dovetailing into different countries’ existing agricultural legislation, with the aim still being patent monopolies in the hands of the big chemical and biotechnology giants.