Wednesday, 10 Mar 2004

OAXACA CITY, Mexico

Today I went on a press tour organized by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. There were about 20 journalists, all apparently Mexican except me. Our first stop was a facility of INIFAP (National Investigations Institute of Forests, Agriculture, and Livestock) just outside of Oaxaca City.

The main speaker, Professor Jose Sarukhan, is a member of CEC’s advisory committee. He gave us an informative and concise presentation on the history of corn, which was first discovered and domesticated some 10,000 years ago, precisely in this region.

He acknowledged that the genetically engineered corn showing up in Mexico, an insecticidal variety known as Bt, is actually useless here, since it was designed to fight pests that do not exist in Mexico. His main point on biotech was that the technology is not intrinsically bad. He said the corporations have vested interests and are heavy-handed in their push to make every farmer adopt biotech seeds, but he also chastised opponents for allegedly being xenophobic and opposed to change.

Sarukhan concluded that even if biotechnology presents some problems, Mexico should not turn its back on it lest it be left behind in the world economy. As far as he is concerned, there are no intrinsic risks to genetic engineering.

Our lunch stop was simply amazing: the Itanoni restaurant in downtown Oaxaca City. Its owner, Amado Ramirez, is carrying out one of the most exciting and important agro-ecological endeavors in Mexico today. All the tortillas and corn products served in his restaurant are made from traditional seeds that he saves and plants. Most other restaurants, millers, processors, and retailers don’t do such a thing, preferring instead to buy corn from the cheapest source, even if it’s of inferior quality.

Seed saving is an increasingly rare activity in Mexico, especially since NAFTA went into effect in 1994. In the past 10 years, Mexico has been flooded with cheap corn from the U.S. (some 30 percent of it genetically modified), making it uneconomical for many Mexicans to engage in the age-old practice of seed saving.

But Ramirez has gone against the tide, by saving and planting countless corn varieties. The difference between his restaurant’s tortillas and those served elsewhere is simply unbelievable. As we ate, he told us about the spiritual and cultural importance of corn for the Mexican people. If you are ever in Oaxaca, you must eat at Itanoni!

In the afternoon some of us split from the group and attended an alternative counter-forum called In Defense of Corn. It was organized by environmentalists, progressive intellectuals, and indigenous peoples as a counterpart to CEC’s symposium on genetically engineered corn, which takes place tomorrow.

When I saw Mixtec Indians wearing Greenpeace T-shirts with anti-biotech slogans, I knew I had come to the right place. The feeling among speakers, organizers, and attendees was that tomorrow’s CEC symposium will be nothing but a whitewash (or greenwash), and that its conclusions will be generally favorable to the biotech industry.

Tomorrow is the really big day. The CEC symposium will take place at the Victoria Hotel, where I’m staying. The protest groups that organized this counter-forum are going to be there and will demand to be heard.