The Monsanto and Dow corporations, both chemical behemoths, nearly always get their way, by a variety of means and with disastrous consequences on almost every continent. But in El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America:
“The farmers, who have already been consistently outperforming Monsanto with their local seed, which is far healthier and more productive, have just managed to bring about a giant defeat of Monsanto by preventing it from supplying El Salvador with its seeds.”
The bold move followed years of public protest against GMOs throughout Chile.
Alicia Muñoz, of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (Anamuri) explains: “All of the resistance that rural organizations, principally indigenous communities, led during these past years was a success. We were able to convey to the parliament how harmful the law would be for the indigenous communities and farmers who feed us all. Big agriculture, or agro-business, is just that, a business. It doesn’t feed our country.”
Meanwhile in Canada, the US and the EU, governments beholden to the agri-corps rush to do their profit-driven bidding.
The new government in Chile sets an example of what responsible governments can do when they attend to the needs of their people, rather than serve the grey ghosts that stalk the corridors of power.
Follow the international GMO battle in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, coming from Between the Lines, autumn 2014.
Michael Riordon 