Environmentalists rappelled into the hall of Congress to protest. Outside, dressed like devils, they held up banners condemning what they call "the Monsanto law." (item 1)

1.Genetic colonialism - 'THE MONSANTO LAW' - Chicago Tribune
2.An unwelcome crop takes root - New York Times
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1.MEXICO, MAIZE AND MONSANTO
Genetic colonialism
`THE MONSANTO LAW'
Mexico and the corn law --and degrees of caution
By Hugh Dellios
Hugh Dellios is a Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, April 3, 2005
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0504030256apr03,1,1926751.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed

Environmentalists rappelled into the hall of Congress to protest. Outside, dressed like devils, they held up banners condemning what they call "the Monsanto law."

That was the welcome received by a new Mexican law that proponents say could help the country develop biotechnology to battle its own peculiar farm plagues, improve its food output and clean up soil contaminated by oil spills.

The Law of Biosecurity for Genetically Modified Organisms, signed recently by President Vicente Fox, is the latest flash point of contention over the idea of lab-altered food, crops and medicine.

While the issue raises health concerns in other parts of the world, it is an especially sensitive topic in Mexico because of fears about the impact of altered genes on the world's original corn species.

While Mexico had enforced a moratorium on genetically altered products, the new law puts in place a system to approve and regulate them. That, proponents say, will spur experiments and allow Mexico to better understand and take advantage of one of the world's most promising technologies.

Critics, including Greenpeace, condemn the new law as a sellout to profit-minded industry groups, such as St. Louis-based Monsanto, the agricultural technology developer, without proper safeguards to protect consumers and farmers from unknown risks.

At bottom is the definition of the word "caution."

Nearly all sides agree humanity should proceed cautiously with development of "transgenics," or the transfer of genes from one organism to another, but few agree on how cautiously.

The "cautionary principle" is the basis for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a 2000 international treaty prescribing how nations should develop and trade in transgenic materials. It has been ratified by 118 countries, including Mexico, although not the U.S., by far the largest manufacturer and user of transgenic crops and other products.

The "cautionary principle" supposedly underlies the new Mexican law, as well as a recent report by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation over the potential impact of lab-altered corn, millions of dollars of which is imported into Mexico from the U.S. each year.

While the CEC panel found no evidence of harm or benefit from altered corn genes in Mexico, it warned of risks from unforeseen future genetic experiments. It suggested that, until Mexico develops its own regulatory system, it should take precautionary steps, such as grinding up the imported corn so the kernels can't be planted.

That was way too cautious for industry groups, and for the Bush administration, which criticized the panel's recommendations as "fundamentally flawed and unscientific." The critics also questioned the panel's report for considering sociocultural aspects, such as rural Mexican farmers' fear of the new technology.

"Greenpeace and other groups want to see [the principle of caution] as the principle of cancellation," said Francisco Bolivar Zapata, a biogenetic researcher and chairman of the Biotechnology Committee of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, which endorsed the new law.

Bolivar said the law will allow the government to examine the proposed uses of transgenics on a case-by-case, step-by-step basis. He said that, with time, the country would begin to learn about the benefits, just as Brazil adjusted and now produces soybeans that are 30 percent altered to resist bugs, cost less to produce and use less pesticide.

"Not all transgenics are good, but not all transgenics are bad. We have to analyze them case by case," Bolivar said. "This technology is more natural and more respectful of biodiversity than what we are using now with chemical pesticides."

The law's opponents say it reflects the principle of promotion rather than caution. They don't trust the government, which has consistently endorsed biotechnology, nor many of the scientists who backed the law, some of whom have patents and stand to profit.

"The mechanisms to go step by step and case by case are really weak," said Areli Carreon, coordinator of Greenpeace's consumer protection campaign in Mexico. "This doesn't guarantee us access to food that's free from this technology that is being patented" by biochemical companies.

Under the new law, a government ministry would be charged with analyzing and testing each transgenic product to be marketed. It promotes education about transgenics and sets up a process to designate transgenic "free zones."

The opponents had wanted the new law to set out penalties for transgenics producers who "contaminate" farmers' crops without their permission. They also wanted the law to demand that all transgenic products be labeled for consumers.

As is, the law requires only some labeling. The law's proponents argued that the approval process made it unnecessary and that it would unfairly mark the products while increasing the price for consumers.

"We have to understand that corn in particular has a special situation in Mexico, but we have to create possibilities for other crops," Bolivar said. "We're going to have to go on winning the battles one by one, case by case."
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2.An unwelcome crop takes root
Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times
April 3, 2005 CORN0403
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5325801.html

CAPULALPAM DE MENDEZ, MEXICO -- This ancient Zapotec Indian town of whitewashed adobe houses and tiled roofs perched on a verdant slope of the western Sierra Madre could not be farther from the U.S. laboratories where scientists create strains of genetically altered corn.

This is the birthplace of maize, where people took thousands of years to domesticate its wild ancestor, where pre-Hispanic myths describe it as a gift from the gods and where cooks prepare it in dozens of ways to be served at every meal.

So the discovery of genetically modified corn in the tiny plots there set off a national furor over what many see as an assault by U.S. agribusiness on the crop that is at the core of Mexico's identity.

"For us, maize is in everything: tamales, tacos, tortillas, pozole," said Miguel Ramirez, a local teacher and activist. "For us, it's sacred."

Then, radiating distrust of government assurances after a decade of free trade that has all but depopulated the Mexican countryside, he asked a familiar question: "What is the government doing to make us self-sufficient?"

The answer was a biosecurity law passed by Mexico's congress in February, a step that has divided Mexico's scientists. The issue also has put Washington on alert, making it wary of any threat to the 5.5 million tons of corn that U.S. farmers export to Mexico each year, more than to any other country except Japan.

After several years of study, a panel of international experts found that the risks to health, the environment and biodiversity from genetically modified corn were so far very limited. But after a public forum with local groups in the state of Oaxaca, the panel recommended restrictions to imports anyway, giving special weight to social and cultural arguments about protecting corn.

The panel recommended that Mexico reduce corn imports, clearly label transgenic corn and mill any genetically modified corn as soon as it enters the country to prevent local farmers from planting it.

In the end, the Mexican government set aside the milling recommendation as too expensive but required provisions for labeling that remain unclear. Overall imports of U.S. corn, mostly for animal feed, have stayed the same.

The United States' response was in any case immediate and blistering. It called the report "fundamentally flawed" and argued that the recommendations did not flow from the panel's own scientific conclusions and undercut provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Palette of kernels

The argument has exposed deeper chords that have been resonating in Mexico for two decades. At its center is a dispute over whether Mexico's embrace of free trade and globalization can co-exist with age-old farming practices that form the fabric of rural life.

Like everyone in Capulalpam de Mendez, Ramirez farms a small plot to put corn on his family's table. Following tradition, each household sows grain selected and saved from the previous year's crop. The practice has created a diversity of corn varieties, reflected in a palette of kernels from nearly white to wine red to blue-black, making Mexico a corn seed bank for the world.

One argument against the introduction of genetically altered corn crops is that some fear that cross-pollination with nearby native varieties could someday alter the purity of those crops.

To many in Oaxaca, the transgenic corn that seeped in from the United States was not only alien, but also the final insult from successive governments that have dismantled supports for uncompetitive peasant farming and embraced free trade.

The impact has been enormous over the past generation, driving hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from rural areas, many of them to the United States for work, and sowing deep resentment. "There is a systematic strategy to finish off the countryside," said Aldo Gonzalez, an activist from the neighboring town of Guelatao.

Scientists have echoed those concerns, saying the threat to the crop and to the rural population cannot be separated.

"The most important cause of the loss of genetic diversity to the maize varieties is the loss of people, their departure from the countryside for California, New York and Texas," said Jose Sarukhan, a professor of ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who led the panel that studied the effects of transgenic corn.