Native American News
April 19, 2002
By Jim Kent

Chiapas, Mexico Buffalo Bird Woman once complained about the "new ways" white men in the United States were forcing her to grow corn. A century later, major U.S. corporations are flooding the Mexican market with genetically engineered corn the Hidatsa elder wouldn't even recognize.

The Continental Week of Action against Genetically Modified Corn, sponsored by the grassroots group Global Exchange, will see protests against the technological "manipulation" of corn across the U.S. Mexico and Canada from April 10 through April 17. Its goal is to educate the general public on the negative cultural and unknown health and environmental impacts of genetically modified foods, beginning with corn. Mexico Global Exchange spokesman Brain Zinn said the "first home of maize" has become a dumping ground for genetically modified corn from the United States.

"Since the entrance of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, in 1994, what has happened is that Mexico has gone from a corn net-producing country to an importing country to the point where last year Mexico actually imported six million tons of corn that is neither segregated nor labeled as genetically modified," Zinn commented.

Genetic engineering is a revolutionary new technology that involves the practice of altering the genetic structure of living organisms and selling the resulting seeds or foods for profit. It includes everything from splicing salmon genes into tomatoes to make them more resistant to cold weather to plans for putting flounder genes into strawberries for similar results. But the vast majority of current genetically modified crops have been designed to withstand exposure to specific herbicides or to incorporate pesticidal toxins in their "natural" makeup. With few regulatory processes and labeling requirements in place to govern their sale, opponents are concerned that the lack of research on the effects of genetically engineered foods will result in the general public being the "guinea pigs" for the huge corporations like Monsanto, Kraft and Archer Daniels Midland that are responsible for creating them. Genetic engineering is considered to be inherently dangerous by many who claim it utilizes materials and techniques that may provoke allergic reactions, unexpected toxicity levels and resistance to antibiotics.

"These companies seem to be oblivious to the dangerous effects of their products and we've got places where there are high cancer clusters where some of Monsanto's factories were located," explained Organic Consumers Association spokesman Simon Harris. "And most of the companies that are doing the genetic engineering are pesticide companies. For example, the vast majority of Monsanto's profits come from the sale of a toxic herbicide called 'Round Up', which can be purchased in any hardware store."

Most genetically modified corn has a built in-toxin, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, that's designed to kill insects like the European corn borer. But studies have shown that Bt can also harm beneficial "non-target organisms", such as butterflies. And the U.S. federal government has yet to require testing of genetically modified foods to determine their long-range effects on humans and the environment.

The most prominent case of genetically modified corn came to light in the Fall of 2000, with StarLink corn, manufactured by Aventis. The corn had been approved in the United States for use in animal feed only, but somehow found its way into everything from tacos to grits and resulted in the recall of more than 300 corn products from grocery shelves across the country. Global Exchange suspects that when the federal government directed Aventis to get rid of the corn, it "dumped" it into Mexico. The country's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources first confirmed fears of genetic contamination of Mexican native corn varieties on September 18, 2001. University of California at Berkley scientists Ignacio Chapela and David Quist published a study in the November issue of the British magazine Nature, that indicated Mexican corn had been contaminated by genetically modified corn in the states of Oaxaca and Puebla. Nature's editors recently reneged on their support of the article by noting that "Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper." But the authors are standing by their findings and groups like Global Exchange and Organic Consumers Association back their report and are poised to take action to stop any further impact on Mexican corn.

With cheap U.S. imported corn flooding the Mexican market, up to 60% of which has been genetically modified, the result has been the unemployment of many of Mexico's 3 million corn farmers, about half of which are Indigenous Peoples. The altered corn has also caused the contamination of the more than 10,000 varieties of native Mexican corn. Just as in the U.S., corn has been a primary crop for indigenous Mexican cultures for centuries and is considered sacred by many. Tuscarora tribal member and crop and soil scientist Dr. Jane Mt. Pleasant said that the idea of genetically modified foods goes against everything her people believe in.

"Corn defines who we are, it's what gives the Iroquois people our identity," she observed. "It has been the driving cultural, economic and social engine for the Confederacy. Many of us are fearful that genetically modified corn and the attempts by large multi-national industries to take control of the food supply threatens the right of Indigenous peoples to control their food."

Mt. Pleasant pointed out that the Iroquois, or Haudenosaunne, have been planting corn in the northeast area of the United States for a millenium. With an estimated one-third of all corn in the U.S. being genetically modified, she's concerned about the crop's vulnerability to cross-pollination.

"We know that because corn cross-pollinates so easily, it will pick up genetic material from other corn plants that are grown, in some cases, miles away," Mt. Pleasant noted. "So if corn is out there and it's being planted, it's impossible to prevent the transfer of genetically modified material in plants that have in some way been patented by these multi-national corporations into non-genetically modified corn plants. And up to this point, these corporations have shown an enormous lack of consideration and lack of interest in the rights of Indigenous people to protect their food supply."

In an attempt to protect their traditional foods, the Lakota on South Dakota's Rosebud Reservation have started the Woju Project, to revitalize the community garden projects of the 1920s and 30s. Lakota studies teacher Ione Quigley explained that the main goal of the project is to demonstrate that traditional foods such as wild turnips, chokecherries, plums, and teas can still be utilized.

"We're hoping to get the entire reservation involved in taking more control over their food systems and show that this is a healthier way of life," she commented. "We don't believe in genetically modified foods. We live with the philosophy of Mitakuye` Oyasin, meaning that everything is connected, nothing is above or below another. And when we start saying this is not good enough, it needs to be bigger, it's not strong enough, or hearty enough, let's manipulate this to what we want, I believe that we're really going into an unnatural state and nothing will serve it's purpose anymore."

Global Exchange has planned demonstrations against genetically modified corn in Mexico City, Vera Cruz, Albuquerque, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Washington, D.C, and Winnepeg, Canada.

"I truly believe that all people, whether or not it's corn or it's some other plant, that a fundamental human way of being is our relationship with plants that we grow as food," Mt. Pleasant observed. " And when we lose that connection, we lose something that's incredibly integral to our identities as people."