From Xico

Carlos Pascual May Not Remain US Ambassador to Mexico

Carlos Pascual is a very interesting and competent functionary, now currently Ambassador to Mexico.  He has hardly had a chance to show himself as Ambassador to Mexico, but already is being, apparently, considered for head of USAID.  I suspect if he is given some leeway, he would be a wonderful USAID director, and would give the agency an important boost and hopefully a more international perspective on problems.

Carlos Pascual, US Ambassador to Mexico on Narcotráfico

According to El Proceso, 21 October:

The US Ambassador in Mexico, Carlos Pascal, warned today that Narcotráfico is a threat to the whole hemisphere since it control points of sale, demand and transport in the American Union (sic), Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America.

After presenting his credentials to President Felipe Calderón at the National Palace, the US diplomat said that in facing this situation, one must analyze the problem of narcotráfico on a hemispheric scale, get involved in the issues, invest resources and abilities, to deal with all these aspects of it.

He confirmed that in the US they have begun to tackle the subjects related to the demand for drugs, and at the same time they have begun to improve abilities to reduce the flow of arms and money to other countries including Mexico.

On the subject of corruption, he said, US authorities have undertaken the matter in a responsible and serious fashion and they have, to this end, have put in place systems to monitor customs officials and the police.

However, he admitted that it must be recognized that the narcotraficantes are always going to be "adjusting" their strategies, because o which it is necessary to review how to integrate the systems of both countries.

Furthermore, he spoke on behalf of a joint Mexican-US project on the border of Mexico and Guatemala to combat arms traffic.

In declaring that the Plan Mérida was a Mexican proposal, Ambassador Pascual said the initiative had been important for regional cooperation on matters of secrity.

He saidthat possible at the end of the year or in January, US planes and helicopters would arrive In Mexico as part of the equipment agreed to en Plan Mérida.

On the issue of migratión, he noted that it was a matter which the Obama administration intended to address, although at present the priority was reform of health care.

Pressing the Flesh

I'm hardly a reader of the garbage mass-congregation media-star religious leaders on the right put out, but Rabbi David Wolpe, although leader of a large congregation on Wiltshire Boulevard in Westwood, in suburban Los Angeles and a frequent guest in the media, is cut from different cloth.  (I have, I know, revealed a bunch of prejudices.) He is truly wise and learned.  Below is his most recent Off the Pulpit post, perhaps not his best one, but one that interested me because in the tangential way my mind works, I was led back to yesterday in our Spanish class, where we started talking about Mexicanidad, or Mexican nature/identity.  That led me to thinking about differences between living where I do and living where I did in the US, most recently for eight years in San Antonio. 

Below, Rabbi Wolpe talks about the value of teaching with a teacher present (especially a wise one) vs.reading his lessons long distance and what you learn about the teachers themselves and not just their scholarship.  I agree with him.  

Roles Greater
than Rules

 

BY RABBI DAVID WOLPE

Judaism so treasures words one might think you could get a righteous person out of a book. Yet beginning with the bible Judaism taught that laws come to life in people. Role models speak louder than rules.

Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary Solomon Schechter famously explained to the incoming student and future Chancellor Louis Finkelstein that the purpose of coming to the seminary was not to learn a fact or law; he could learn those elsewhere. The purpose was to study with great men. Speaking of his years as a student my father told me far less about what he learned than about the people with whom he learned. They were not perfect, but they were passionate, learned, marvelously eccentric and they brought the tradition to life.

To the extent that the Internet and the proliferation of long distance learning deprive us of being in the presence of charismatic, kind, scholarly people, it will be a tremendous loss. When a Hasid said that he traveled miles just to see how his master tied his shoes, he was expressing this beautiful idea. What we learn from a great teacher cannot be put into a book, because it is in a look, an inflection, a quirk of personality or a tossed off comment. The greatest human lessons are found in the power of presence.

 

So now as is its habit,  my mind leapt kind of obliquely to thinking about human contact in my current life, and not just or even with sages (except for Jim).  Here we have much more contact. We can't just hide in our house and hop in our car and go to a mall or to our cubbies at work, or only shop among strangers...or we could, actually, if we lived in some of the newer, more prosperous fraccionamientos in Xalapa, although even in that case, life is different: houses tend to be right next to or at least near each other, people are out on the streets, etc. etc. etc.  I think the actual flesh-and-blood kind of human contact part of life is something a lot of Estadounidenses are badly deprived of (but certainly not all as my friends in the Northampton, MA area could testify to, or my kids who live in Boston's North End). In much of the US we don't brush against each other as we walk down streets, we don't have the water man bringing us our garafones every few days, we don't have neighbors ringing our bells to ask questions or use the phone or invite us somewhere (often done in person since most people in our Colonia at least don't have phones); We don't have kids coming by to use the computer or to ask if we've put up our altar for Día de Muertos yet.  We don't have people knocking on the door to sell home-made tamales or chairs or lottery tickets or to ask for a faena for some local project; we don't walk across the street to buy whatever we've run out of at the little tienda or down the street to buy hand-made tortillas.  We don't just stop in the street VERY frequently to exchange news with neighbors to the extent that we are almost always a bit late for appointments.  In our colonia, on the other hand, if someone tells us, for instance, that someone's house has exploded because of a gas leak, we recognize who the person is, and we recognize the person's family and we know them well enough to at least have been saying buenos días over time....Everything is just more personal. Flesh is real, if you will, contact often unplanned, without make-up, and rarely with strangers.  Of course in our Colonia people experience the worst of each other as well as the best.  This is good.  We can't step over the neighborhood drunks because we know them.  They are flesh and blood. Some of the people are grasping and mean but overwhelmingly, most are not.  We have a few very, very old women in our colonia, tiny and thin, more like feathers or wraiths.  They walk here and there slowly and carefully.  One of them lives in a tiny two-story house overlooking the river across from the main part of the colonia.  We've seen people helping her fix it up. The woman in the produce market gives these old women less-than-prime vegetables, but they are usable and free, and the transaction is  dignified.  

We are outsiders and always will be to some extent. But as the life of the community seeps into our being, we also feel more and more like this is home. 

Dia de Muertos en Nuestra Vida/Day of the Dead in Our Lives

I am working up a post which I hope will give you some substantial information on The Day of the Dead.  MEANWHILE, Day of the Dead stuff has already started, not only in our Colonia, but in the wider community.  

Yesterday in my painting class (in a tienda on a corner of Campillo in Coatepec) an old woman came in selling the gorgeous big golden marigolds that are universal for the Day of the Dead and big purple flowers which in the US I think are called coxcomb but here are called Pata del león -- lion's paw. She carried them in a shawl.  I bought some of the latter, our maestra bought a lot of both.  There is a standard price, I think: ten pesos, or maybe $.70 a (big) bunch for either kind of flower. 

Yesterday evening in my Spanish class in el Museo, La Casa de María Enriqueta in Coatepec, we talked a bit about faith and identity because obviously the Day of the Dead has religious roots.  Our maestra who is an absolutely delightful and very intelligent and articulate woman from Coatepec said that nowadays, people picked and chose what they wanted to observe in Catholicism, but that Dia de Muertos is very important for evryone: a kind of cafeteria-style Catholicism, perhaps, but nonetheless an integral part of Mexican culture.

In our Colonia, which is neither very rich nor very sophisticated, for many it is a kind of loose Catholicism that prevails as well.  And yet Día de Muertos captivates everyone, and our neighbors are very anxious that we, too, have an altar.  Eduardo, the son of an amiga, brought us a basket for an altar in which we could put dulces.  So Jim put a picture of his parents in our nicho, and Tere put  the patas del león in a vase and found another picture of Jim's mother.  Today, I brought the golden marigolds home, and Tere decided she had enough to go whole-hog.  I will post a pictue when she is done.

More to come...  

Scientific Reasons not to use Genetically Modified Seed in Statement by Mexico's UCCS

In the post on UCCS's (Mexico's Union of Scientists Committed to Society) Statement protesting the approval of experimental plots for GM seeds, the arguments were buried in a rather long post.  Below, I lay them out in a somewhat terser form.  These arguments are not intended to be inclusive, but rather the are arguments which address Mexico's unique place as the birthplace of maize and the home of its diverse heirs. 

• Experimental evidence produced in Mexico 15  years ago is justification for continued moratorium on GM plantings.
• Given the proven capacity of maize germ plasm (genetic resources stored in a seed) to disperse into the environment by means of pollen or seed-flow, we can be certain that the release of GM seeds into the environment will lead to the spread of transgenic materials throughout Mexican territory.
• After a quarter of a century of experimental releases and more than a decade of commercial distribution of transgenic maize, there is much evidence that the benefits of GM seeds do not compensate for the risks their use poses.
• Many governments in the word have stopped planting and even stopped the importation of transgenic maize materials.
• Risk of GM seed release may escalate where the seeds are planted as well as at centers of crop diversification.  In these locations, transgenes will inevitable become inserted in a number of different varieties with diverse genes and backgrounds.
• Of special concern is the fact that maize is currently being used as a "bioreactor", that is as a biological factory planted in the field not to yield food but to use for making industrial products such as plastics, industrial oils, biofuels and pharmaceuticals.  It is expected that the genetic materials for GM seeds created to produce corn for these purposes will permeate the human food chain.  [This will affect the nature of corn used for food.]  This is a risk of enormous consequence for Mexican and world human populations.  
• Accidental mixing of non-transgenic seed with bioreactor GM maize from experimental ad commercial plantings has already occurred in seed storage silos in the US.
• There is much concern over the consequences of patented GM seeds penetrating the maize cultivated by most farmers in Mexico.  This opens the way to large and expensive liabilities that use, trade or exchange maize seeds or grain containing them. [This refers to the fact that Monsanto aggressively seeks out any evidence of its GM germ plasm everywhere and wields patent law to sue farmers large and small in whose crops they find even traces of their GM material. This is frequently GM material that got into seeds and crops by accidental spread.]
• There is increased possibility of GM seed contamination of the Mexican teosinte, the wild relative and ancestor of maize.  This threatens negative impacts to species' gene pool and the management of teosinte.
• Unlike chemical pollution, mixing maize germ plasm with GM germ plasm threatens irreversible change.  This threatens Mexico's heritage which is stewarded by Mexico's indigenous people and farmers.
• GM seed pollution -- the mingling of GM seed material with non-GM seed material is invisible.  That is, there is no visible difference between GM and non-GM maize varieties even though they hold extremely different physiological properties.   Thus, the responsibilities of producers, regulators, farmers and food processors to protect the environment and the public is much greater than it is for other kinds of pollution.
• Given the complex structure of the native maize seed populations and the fact that genes travel via pollen, a reliable seed-tracing system for segregating GM and non-GM maize lines at an acceptable level is not only not available, but not possible.  This makes it impossible for farmers, food-processors and consumers to ensure that their stocks remain free of unwanted transgenic elements.
• Despite the increased burden of responsibility that producers of transgenic lines and regulators hsould bear, the introduction of GM germ plasm into Mexico is being done with only partial or no consultation and the details of the materials introduced are being kept secret to protect business interests.
• There is no infrastructure available in Mexico or anywhere else, for that matter, that would be competent to review proposed releases and to monitor the panoply of potential damages such releases might cause.

As I said, these are the arguments directed toward the Mexican government with a particular emphasis on protecting Mexico's rich inheritance and tradition.  It is written in the context of a group which stresses ethical responsibility in using science and technology.  Ethics are largely absent in the mix of corporate interest and science and technology in the US, and many people make no  apologies for that.  I would argue that it is a critical absence.  Mistrust of science and technology is growing in the US because no one trusts what corporations and their scientists and even scientists in universities where they may receive money from corporations tell us.  Innovations should be handled in a manner that protects the planet instead of in a manner that regards it as fertile ground for harvesting yet more money and power.

Mexican Scientists Speak Out against Monsanto's GM Maize

The Mexican government has given approval to "experimental" plots of Monsanto GM seed in five states.  But there is certainly widespread opposition in the country.  It is often educated and articulate opposition. One such group is El Unión de Cientificos Comprometidos con Sociedad (UCCS) Union of Scientists Commited to Society.

El Unión de Cientificos Comprometidos con la Sociedad is a Mexican scientific organization made up of leading scientists and researchers in diverse fields committed to responding forcefully to the present national and world situation which they say is characterized by:

• an unprecedented environmental and social crisis
• socioeconomic inequality which continues to deepen
• a growing technology gap
• growing violence in the exercise of power
• an incapacity to resolve social conflicts in a rational and peaceful way
• an increase in the use of scientific and technological knowledge for military/bellicose ends, and in this way to satisfy the economic interests of the huge multinational corporations
• a growing tendency to privatize public entities of research and higher education.

The members of this relatively new (2004) organization are numerous and stellar as you can see here.  They have signed on to a manifesto committed to the following objectives:

• To analyze scientific developments, applications and risks by means of a socially and environmentally responsible interdisciplinary approach.
• To communicate the results of their analyses and to submit them to criticism within universities and educational centers and centers of investigation as well as in social organizations, by diverse means such as conferences and workshops.
• To open scientific debates to a dialog of knowledgeable leaders encouraging the greatest public participation possible.
• To look for new forms of connecting with societies, especially with organizations t which have a social role and which promote sustainable management of natural resources ad the environment.
• To promote the formation of new scientists with awareness of their ethical and social responsibilities with critical and self critical capacity, open to inter- and cross-disciplinary work, respectful of other cognitive practices and open to dialog with experts.
• To contribute to the discussion and critical assimilation of norms and ethical values into scientific practices.
• To construct a cultural tradition of critical studies addressing the role of science in society.
• To analyze critically and purposefully the present policies for the development of science in Mexico, the ways in which scientific work is undertaken and to form new researchers, and to analyze those national problems for which the sciences ought to make important contributions towards their understanding and solution.
• To influence the taking decisions and the elaboration of public policy such as in legal frameworks i matters in which scientific-technological information is important.
• To promote communication and coordination between different groups of scientists, humanists and academics who share the above-mentioned concerns and commitments in Mexico and the world.

The UCCS directed a strongly worded statement to President Calderón on September 29 registering its strong opposition to the introduction of genetically modified seeds into Mexico.  I reproduce the whole statement below.  It addresses very specifically the scientific basis for their opposition.

President of Mexico, Mr. Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa:

This year you stand in a historical position to prevent irreversible damage to one of the World’s most precious resources: Mexico’s maize diversity. We observe that your Administration may be rushing to introduce genetically modified (GM) maize into the Mexican environment and we are convinced, from our understanding of the scientific evidence, that this move represents a disproportionate risk which should be avoided for the benefit of Mexico and the World. Joined together in our well-informed concern, we urge you to move aggressively to ensure that no GM maize is planted in Mexico, the Center of Origin and Diversification of this important crop.

We are scientists, intellectuals and artists with expertise ranging from biology, biotechnology, agronomy and ecology, to the humanities, social sciences, anthropology, economy, biosafety, policy and jurisprudence; our joint expertise is the minimum that would be needed to understand the complexities posed by the agroecological as well as socioeconomic and cultural significance of maize in Mexico. We have noted with dismay that well-founded scientists and cultural experts’ pleas to apply best scientific and social practices to the question of whether to introduce GM maize into the Mexican environment have gone largely unheeded. Indeed, experimental evidence produced in Mexico 15 years ago in trials leading to a justified moratorium on GM plantings from 1998 to 2003, has been set aside in a new drive towards unbridled release of GM maize in Mexico.

We are compelled to write this letter, given the latest element of a scientifically unjustifiable drive, embodied in the publication of amendments to the Law for the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (published by the Diario Oficial de la Federación on March 6, 2009), which disable the Special Protection Regime for Maize and other crops, for which Mexico is center of origin and diversification. Such amendments prepare the legal grounds to authorize field releases of GM maize varieties in the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Nayarit and Chihuahua. Given the proven capacity of the maize germplasm to disperse through pollen or seed-flow, we can be certain that such release will lead to the increased presence of transgenic materials elsewhere throughout the Mexican territory.

After a quarter-century of experimental releases and more than a decade of commercial distribution of transgenic maize, there is plenty of evidence that the benefits offered by such lines do not compensate for the risks posed by their release. A review of the scientific literature and even the expert opinions offered by some of us through the official consultation of the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture agencies (SENASICA) makes this fact clear. Many other governments in the world have taken this experience into account to stop the planting, and in many cases even the importation of transgenic maize materials, making the position of your government, Mr. President, even more puzzling and unjustifiable.

The risks of GM release may escalate at centers of crop origin and diversification. Here, transgenes will inevitably become inserted in a variety of different land races (with diverse genomic contexts and backgrounds).

Below you will find a detailed listing of concerns and problems associated with the possibility of transgenic maize being released in Mexico, but we would like to highlight here a few particular examples. We are specially concerned by the fact that maize is currently used as a “bioreactor”, a biological factory planted in the field to yield not food, but industrial products such as plastics, industrial oils, biofuels and pharmaceuticals. Because of the open cross pollination nature of maize reproduction and the specific conditions of the Mexican agroecosystem, it is to be expected that transgenic bioreactor materials will permeate the human food-chain, a risk of enormous consequences for the Mexican and world human populations. Accidental mixing of non-transgenic seed by bioreactor transgenic maize from experimental and commercial plantings has already occurred in seed storage silos in the United States.

Equally troubling are the consequences of the penetration of patented transgenes into maize lines cultivated by most farmers in Mexico, opening the prospect of complex, large and expensive liabilities for individuals that use, trade or exchange maize seed or grain containing them. These examples add to the possibility of transgene contamination of the Mexican teosinte (the wild relative and ancestor of maize), which in itself implies potential negative impacts to the genetic pool of the species and the agronomical management of teosinte.

Unlike chemical pollution, the transgenic transformation of maize germplasm, a heritage stewarded by indigenous people and farmers in Mexico, might be irreversible and likely to accumulate of transgenes in its genome, making the responsibility of our generation towards future populations even greater. Because there is no visible difference between GM and non-GM maize varieties, which nevertheless hold extremely different physiological qualities, the responsibility of producers and regulators, farmers and food processors to protect the environment and the public is also much greater than for other kinds of pollution. Because there is no visible difference between GM and non-GM maize varieties, which nevertheless hold extremely different physiological qualities, the responsibility of producers and regulators, farmers and food processors to protect the environment and the public is also much greater than for other kinds of pollution. Furthermore, given the complex structure of native maize populations resulting form the informal seed sector and gene flow via pollen, a reliable tracing system in Mexico for segregating GM and non-GM maize lines at any typically acceptable level is not available or indeed possible. Therefore, release of GM lines into the open field in Mexico will only increase the chance of introgression and accumulation of transgenes in the genomes of native maize stocks. This will remove the possibility of a responsible involvement of farmers, food-processors and consumers in ensuring that their stocks remain free of unwanted transgenic elements. Yet despite this increased onus of responsibility on producers of transgenic lines and regulators, the introduction of GM germplasm into Mexico is done with only partial or no consultation, and the details of the materials introduced are not disclosed due to business interests.

Also, the infrastructure that would be necessary to review proposed releases and to monitor the panoply of potential damages caused by such releases is not available in Mexico or elsewhere. We believe that under these circumstances, the only justifiable protection of the invaluable Mexican maize germplasm is to establish an official and effective moratorium on the cultivation of GM maize cultivars until long-term research on the impact of transgenic maize in Mexico is conducted. Such research should not imply the risks that wanted to be avoided.

In sum, Mr. President, we beseech you to engage actively with your administration to achieve the following goals that we believe are reasonable, easily achievable and scientifically justified as the most basic requirement to ensure the safety and long-term availability of key genetic resources for Mexicans and for the world:

1. Establish an official banning of any and all field releases of commercial GM maize varieties, and at the same time, support rigorous scientific investigation on the potential of diverse and alternative agro-technologies in Mexico, as well as the risks implied in their use in centers of origin and diversification. That research must be designed and performed in public institutions and/or by independent scientists free of conflicts of interest.

2. Increase to a level of scientifically-sound efficacy the infrastructure necessary to monitor and independently evaluate seed and grain entering Mexico from countries that produce GM maize varieties.

3. Adopt a clear and effective policy to ensure that no food plant, such as maize, will be used as a bioreactor to produce non-edible substances in Mexico or in any other country.

We are ready to provide more detailed scientific data or expand the arguments that further support our statements, as well as to collaborate in initiatives that guarantee the prevention of transgene accumulation in the world's maize genetic resources.

Looking forward to your response concerning this urgent and delicate matter.

The signatories to this statement include not only Mexicans but scientists and physicians from outstanding US universities and other countries.

The President has not responded as of today.

Monstrous Monsanto in Mexico and the World

Monsanto is the largest producer of genetically modified seed in the world.  This company with its tentacles spread across continents has a tightening grip on the production of some of the world's basic foods, like corn and soy.  Its grip doesn't have to do with the superiority of its products but with its relentless pursuit of profit at any cost and with any tools at hand.  Genetically modified seed production is the latest and most ominous of its activities. Here is a link to a summary of some of its actions and products among thousands.  Monsanto is like an unchained monster in a horror movie.  This sounds alarmist, but it's not.  

Monsanto, along with a few other companies made its name known through the production of Agent Orange which was used to such devastating effect in Vietnam.  It is headquartered in St. Louis, MO, and for quite a number of years I drove, shuddering, past its campus on my way to work.  Its name was frequently associated in St. Louis with problems of pollution linked to Dioxin in Times Beach and for toxic dumping in the Mississippi near Sauget, Illinois, for instance.  Its name became linked, and accurately, with extremely severe toxic spills elsewhere and with its efforts to cover up what it was doing.  An especially tragic case occurred in Anniston, Alabama. It has been identified as the responsible party by the EPA in at least 93 toxic waste Superfund sites There have been incidents of seeping toxic waste burial sites in Great Britain. Look these up and you'l find much more: there are a million links. You can find a good overview in Vanity Fair in an article called "Monsanto's Harvest of Fear." It is impossible to encompass the terrible deeds of Monsanto in a web post.  

Monsanto branched out from chemicals to genetically modified seeds in the late 1990s.  It has been so successful in spreading its genetically modified seeds because it has patented them. It uses patent law, of all things, as an extremely deadly weapon.  

How can you patent genes, you ask.  Before 1980, you couldn't.  But in 1980, in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, a 5-4 decision said that genetically modified bacteria could be patented because the modified bacteria didn't exist in nature.  This lay the groundwork for patents on DNA sequences that are less than a whole gene, and thus the groundwork for Monsanto.

Monsanto also produces the worlds biggest-selling herbicide, Roundup (used, incidentally, to devastating effect in the "War on Drugs" in Colombia in an amped-up form known as Roundup Ultra).  Many of  its seeds have been genetically modified to work with Roundup.  Its GM seeds are patented and so is Roundup.

GM seeds are not, in and of themselves, evil.  But they are extremely dangerous in the hands of unscrupulous businesses like Monsanto.  Genetically modified seeds and research into them belong in highly protected lab settings and only in the hands of researchers who don't have any interest in spreading them around without full knowledge of the consequences and the ways to handle them. Anyone handling GM seeds should have a well-developed set of ethics which includes recognizing the need to protect human beings and the environment and the need to avoid a single, or eve a few, corporations dominating food production

The problems of corporate-produced genetically modified seeds are multiple, but we can roughly summarize them in three categories: environmental, social, and economic.

You can read about environmental damage caused by Monsanto by following  another million links. One concept to think about is that Monsanto is assuming a steady-state environment, but the environment is always evolving  A simple-to-understand problem is that Monsanto's seeds which are genetically modified to work with Roundup are not resistant to weeds which evolve to survive Roundup.  Got that? Like germs and antibiotics: many germs have evolved to survive our current crop of antibiotics.  So for the Monsanto's GM crops to avoid drowning in super-weeds, some of which have already evolved, they'll need an even more powerful herbicide...not so great for the environment.  This gets really weird.  GM seeds that escape can cross-breed with the weeds themselves -- and thus produce herbicide-resistant pest plants.

Another problem is the expanding use of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. Thus, the more seeds developed to work with Roundup, the less variety in the kinds of pesticides people use, the more likely weeds are to grow resistant to glyphosate. Because these seeds are used on an enormous scale, the problem increases drastically. A kind of side effect is that in, for instance, Argentina, the use of GM seeds (a tangled story indeed) has led to the rapid expansion of the production of soybeans and consequent deforestation to make room for more soy.  It also has led to a decrease in crop diversity and destruction of the livelihoods of small farmers there.

Remember, this is just a limited glimpse of the environmental problems.

Social problems result from full frontal attacks, via patent law, on farmers who don't use Monsanto seeds.  Monsanto has what amounts to a huge secret police that monitors farmers' fields.  If farmers have not purchased Monsanto GM seed and Monsanto finds ANY evidence of a Monsanto seed on the farm, it institutes endless legal proceedings for patent violation.  It seems the purposes are ultimately to get money from "offending" farmers and to make it impossible for them to use non-Monsanto GM seeds. This hurts small farmers: Monsanto seeds are expensive and they contain a "patent-based technology fee."  In other countries, the use of GM seeds has a devastating effect on local farmers' abilities to sustain themselves as occured in Argentina.  

Monsanto, in short, is a ruthless organization that will lie, cheat, hide, bend and break the law, obfuscate and attack ruthlessly in order to keep itself growing.

What we might call the economic effects are pretty interesting.  For one thing, Monsanto is gaining control of huge swatches of food production.  The New York Times in an editorial on October 23 of this year said, 

"Many people think of agriculture as a tradition-bound occupation.  It is far more like information technology, as high tech companies genetically engineer seeds and a few powerful companies strive to dominate the market.  Following a decade of unchecked consolidation, it is time for the Justice Department to take a hard look at potentially anticompetitive behavor....

"A good place to start is with Monsanto....[whose seeds] are present in 90% of the soybean crops and 79% of the corn [in the United States], akin to Microsoft Windows on computers....

"Agriculture is at the frontier of technological progress.  Its innovations will determine, to a large extent, whether and at what cost this country and the world will be able to feed its growing populations.  No company should dominate such an essential business."

And yet Mexico has just granted 15 permits for GM seed research projects in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuaha, Sonora and Tamaulipas, with another eight pending. Nine of the just granted permits go to Monsanto, six to its brother-in-crime Dow AgroScience.

Of course the goverment offers all kinds of assurances and in fact has put in place some protections. But according to El Processo,

"[T]here was no pressure, but rather everything is according to the law, now that the most important thing is to guarantee to society that the goverment is doing its best. Enriqe Sánchez Cruz, director in chief of the National Public Health and Food Safety Service explained that expert opinion was taken into account in setting up experimental seed projects, that it is all according to law, and that they have the support of the [Mexican] Inter-departmental Commission of Biosecurity on Genetically Modified Organisms.

"He said that the plantings which will be undertaken will be strictly experimental and that they will take place on controlled plots and totally isolated from other types of cultivars.  

"Addressing the measures of biosecurity established by law, Mauricio Limón Aguirre, subsecretary of Management for the Protection of the Environment, referred to the construction of cycle fencing to avoid easy access to these little land parcels where the experiments will take place; mentioned that there will be a minimum distance of 500 meters from other crops, and there will be a temporary period of isolation after a month to avoid the flow of genetic material to a possible conventional maize crop.

"Furthermore, [they will be required] to specify geographic coordinates; to establish a log, to erect pollen plants so that there won't be any flow through this means (whatever that means), and in addition to burn the product so that it doesn't enter the food supply.

"During the press conference, Juan Elvira Quezada [head of the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural resources, or Semarnat] did not specify exactly what the permits said and what area was covered, among other things.  He only said that you could find the information on the [Senasica] web page.

However, at consulting the page at www.senasica.gov.mx and linking to transgenics, only the phrase, 'Forgive the inconvenience.  The information which meets the criteria of your search does not exist.'"

Here's what La Jornada reported in May when Monsanto was first said to be interested in Mexico:

"Mexico, Monsanto's New Garbage Dump" by Ana de Ita

"European civil society has succeeded impressively with victories in its war against transgenics.  Seven countries: France, Austria, Luxemburg, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and this past month, Germany, have passed moratoriums on the sowing of the only variety of transgenic corn permitted in Europe, Mon810, a Bt variety of Monsanto that is resistant to insects.  Italy has a general prohibition against all genetically modified cultivars while a referendum in Switzerland in 2005 established five years of moratorium against these commercial cultivars  The government expanded it to 2013.

"European prohibitions are the result of civic pressure on the government and the autonomous decision of citizens, campesinos, farmers and the population in general to establish areas voluntarily free from transgenics.  There are now 196 such areas.

"The governmeents, to respond to the social problems of trangenics in the fields and on dining tables, have taken for their justification scientific studies which show the impact on the environment, the lack of knowledge of the effects on human and animal health, and also the certainty that it is impossible to protect the production of conventoinal and organic crops from contamination by transgenics

"Monsanto has responded forcefully in trying to block the prohibitions against the planting of their transgenic varieties, starting with pressuring governments, including challenging judicial pronouncements against them, as is the case with Germany.  The fact is that transgenic maize in Europe only represents 0.01 percent of world cultivation of maize, and it is expected that it will become even less.

"To counter this tendency [in Europe] Monsanto seeks to advance rapidly in countries of the south, using the false argument that its transgenics will resolve hunger problems in the world.

"During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the end of January, Hugh Grant, not the actor but the international president of Monsanto, met with President Felipe Calderón and then congratulated him for his agricultural policy, mainly the one that addressed small and medium-sized businesses and he repeated his interest in supporting technological development in Mexico. 

"This past March 6th, a presidential decree put an end to the de facto moratorium on the sowing of transgenic maize which since the end of 1998 had prevented the plantings of experimental or commercial transgenic crops in the country.

"The unilateral decision of the president gave the starting shot to the advance of transgenic maize, although the road was already paved by the Law of Biosecurity and Genetically Modified Crops, popularly known as the Monsanto Law (2005).

"Only a month later, Monsanto sought approval for 12 experimental plantings of three varieties of transgenic maize in Sonora, Sinaloa and Chihuaha, and in May, Dow and Pioneer-Dupont, two other corporations of the six that monopolize the transgenic seed market, sought permission to experiment with another 12 varieties in the same states.

"The corporations seek to begin these tests during the next cycle of planting in autumn-winter in experimental public research fields  and in the fields of "cooperative farmers" in the north.  INIFAP (National Institute of Forest, Agriculture and Fisheries Research) and Monsanto will supervise the research. 

"The experiments are to be in the phase necessary to look into aspects of biosecurity and to permit moving to the following stages which are pilot and commercial.  The experiments uniquely center on agronomic aspects such as yields, costs and effectiveness against infestations and don't address impacts on biodiversity, the environment, health, rural agriculture, ecology and culture in general.

There are three transgenic varietie of maize which Monsanto seeks to experiment with.  One is maize resistant to Roundup Ready, [a herbicide] also produced by Monsanto and which independent researchers have categorized as highly toxic in experiments with rats and embryos.

The second variety is Maize BT, resistant to insects (Mon 89034 x 88017).  The European prohibition against the variety Mon 810 had as its rationale the study of rats fed with Bt Mon 863 which demonstrated symptoms of poison in the liver and kidney.  Other studies report high toxicity of the pollen from bt  maize for butterfly larvae, and also the destruction of soil fertility  The third variety is a combination of the first two.

Sagarpa (the Department of agriculture, cattle farming, fisheries and food) maintains that Mexico cannot [quedar rezagado] of this technology.  However, after almost 14 years of transgenic plantings, it can be seen that Monsanto and Co. have taken refuge in the countries of the south where the absence of environmental regulation constitute one of their main competitive advantages.  The planting of transgenic maize in Mexico turns us into Monsanto´s ew garbage dump.

Rudolfo Anaya otra vez

Rudolfo Anaya writes wonderful novels.  From New Mexico, he fills is pages with the color of the New Mexican landscape and the people (and mysterious beings) in it.  If you are looking for something to get you going reading Spanish, while Anaya writes in English, for sure Bless Me Ultima is available translated into Spanish.  I haven't thought of Anaya for a number of years.  One melancholy memory I have is getting all excited to go to a book signing he was doing in San Antonio, TX in a Barnes and Noble in a mall facing I410 -- the Loop -- on the north side, a soulless place if ever there was one.  Hardly anyone turned up!  I couldn't believe it.  Anyway, here is a snippet that appeared on the Big Read Blog sponsored by of all things the US government.  Check it out. Un hombre muy amable.  

 

Rudolfo Anayo

World Food Day in Coatepec and Rome -- Updated

Friday, October 16 was World Food Day. Below is my translation of parts of a post which appeared in the Coatepec Blog today:

"This Friday 16th of October we celebate the World Day of Food, a day which has as its objective to make humanity aware of the straits in which many childre and failies still live because of poverty and lack of food.

"It is for this that DIF Municipal de Coatepec, which Viridiana Virues de Ramirez Cabañas presides over, through the Section of Food Assisstance and the Executive office of CEDAS (family and child aid office) developed a series of activities to commemorate this important day. 

[The students in primary schools from various communities] saw an interactive movie entitled "Fer Wants to Know...What You Have to Eat" which taught children the basic characteristics of food...and most of all the importance of eating well ind order to grow up, to enjoy good health  and to always have enough energy for all their activities; and to avoid the resuts of not eating right and not eating food from all the food groups....

"At the end of the program in the halls and patios of the Palacio Municipal there was a demonstration and tasting of foods prepared by the schools."

Here is  picture:

 

You'll notice that the food is home-made, not packaged: lots of tortillas and beans and ensalada stuff.  Milk. Oops...and candies for treats....lower right.  Well, for a treat, that's fine.

Mexico is very aware that it has a food and nutrition problem which is something of a tragedy.  Indigenous foods provided a truly healthy, balanced diet.  Except in times of drought, in the very olden days people did not want for nutritious food: beans and tortillas, for instance, make for a complete protein.  And there were squash, tomatoes, chiles, leafy vegetabes, fish, turkeys, dogs in hungry times, and a myriad of fruits.  Colonial agriculture and then large scale agriculture after independence diminished people's capacity to grow enough for themselves.

Today, especially among children, the problem is marked, ironically, by obesity brought on by the consumption of junk food, comida chatarra.  Mexico is "the second most overweight and obese country in the world.  It is second in the consumption of sodas and it epresents the biggest growth of obesity on a global scale.  Only in the last seve years, overweight and obesity among children 5 to 11 has increased 40 percent."

The artice sited here in the news section of the Tecnológico de Monterrey web page, reports that Alejandro Calvillo, director of EPC (a private non-profit in Mexico called Power of the Consumer) says that, 

"[T]he agro-industrial model of food production has destroyed the traditional balanced diets giving rise to the consumption of processed foods, rich in refined wheats, saturated fats and artificial flavors and colors.  He urged that in the face of this situation junk food be prohibited in schools and that deceptive advertising of junk food destined for children by eliminated....He pointed out that ...it is not unusual to find type 2 diabetes, so-called adut diabetes, in children, and that in secondary schools there is a significant portion of students wth hypertension....

"He also said that these products cause malnutrition, especially in poor areas where they are consumed in place of nutritious foods [often because they are cheaper].  In many rural and indigenous popuations where one finds the most malnourished people, especially children, it is not uncommon to see a baby drinking cola in a baby bottle.

"Obesity is a global pandemic: 22 million children under five years of age are obese in the world.  There exists solid evidence which shows that the millions spent in advertising influences the choice of food for children.  Foods which are high in sugar, fat and salt are not healthy and ought not to be promoted among children."

The article goes on to describe exactly what ingredients go into junk and processed foods and why they are so damaging.  It strongy condemns the influence of advertising:

"The giant transnational corporations which are the producers of junk food spend millions of dollars in deceptive campaigns which try to persuade consumers to buy these products, which have little or no nutritive value and which in recent years have greatly contributed to the problem of national obesity.

"Mexico occupies first place in the number of TV ads for junk food , with 39 advertisements an hour on Canal Cinco [one of the most-watched channels] of which 17 have to do with food not good for child health.

"The ads try to convince chidren that by consuming this junk they can achieve great things, and they will be able to enter into their world of fantasy having as an admission ticket the promoted product.  Another method these companies use is the promotion of sales which stimulate irrational consumption of these products with the offer of promotional goods which are better than other kids have....To succeed, these giant businesses bombard consumers using all available concepts of communication and displaying them in all possible places." 

Other facts mentioned in the article:

"Children are most vulnerable to this advertising and most of the spot adds are directed to them.

"The foods most advertised on television are instant soups, pizza, all types of fried snacks, sodas, desserts, processed meats, sweetened milk products, drinks and cereals, etc.

"Mexico has the most messages of this sort directed at children; second is Australia and third is the United States.  Norway is in last place: it does not permit commercials directed at chidren because, according to their specialists, it takes advantageof their innocence and is a violation of their human rights."

If you read Spanish, take a look at this article not just for information on Mexico but for a global perspective on these junk-food-producing agroindustries. It will make your blood boil.

And this might, too.  Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University , was invited to give something called the George McGovern World Food Day Lecture to the FAO (United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization) in Rome.  The lecture is sponsored by the United States Embassy.  She was in for a bit of a surprise:  The US Ambassador to the United Nations in Rome stepped forward after her talk to make a point of saying that the opinions Nestle expressed in her talk were hers alone and not those of the US goverment.

And what did she talk about to provoke this?

"The main point of my talk was that hunger, obesity, and food safety are social rather than personal problems and require social rather than personal solutions. If such problems are individual, they can be solved with technical interventions such as functional foods, commercial weaning foods, irradiation, and genetically modified foods. But if we view them as social problems, we need to find solutions that involve sustainability, social justice, and democracy.

For example, we know how to end hunger:

    • Breastfeeding
    • Clean water and safe food
    • Empowerment of women
    • Education
    • Community food security
    • Sustainable agriculture
    • Political stability

These are social interventions. Technical solutions do not enter into them except in emergencies.

I praised the Obamas for leadership in promoting sustainable food production, and ended my talk with [the image copied from the Atlantic below]. I left it up while I was answering questions but the ambassador asked to have it turned off."

 

Ms. Nestle said that at first she dismissed this reaction by the ambassador as standard, but then she went on to talk about how agroindustry seems to be exercising its clout against sustainable food efforts:

"According to an account in the Los Angeles Times, another university--this time Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo--has reneged on a Michael Pollan invitation under pressure from agricultural interests.

"The L.A. Times quotes David Wood, chairman of Harris Ranch Beef Co., who has promised $150,000 toward a new meat processing plant on campus:

While I understand the need to expose students to alternative views, I find it unacceptable that the university would provide Michael Pollan an unchallenged forum to promote his stand against conventional agricultural practices.

"Apparently, this university caved under pressure just as Washington State did in a similar incident earlier this year. And I hear rumors about invitations that never got offered. Freedom of speech must hold at agricultural universities unless the opinions offend donors.

"Expect to see more of this as the food movement gets stronger and more effective."

Or more of it causing the food movement to lose clout.

UPDATE:  More on the withdrawal of the invitation to Michael Pollan here in The Atlantic.  ¡Muy interesante!

Saturday Grocery Shopping in Coatepec--Mostly Photos

Below are some photos of our Saturday shopping day in Coatepec. 

These are wall paintings near where we parked the car.

 

(That's Jim's elbow in the one below)

 

We walked past a bus to our colonia at one of the major bus stops.

 

Yet again the Palacio del Gobierno has been painted.  It is always painted a different color.  This one is paler than most.  In this climate, nothing stays freshly painted looking for very long.

 

The street is momentarily almost empty.  Weird!  It was a busy day in Coatepec. The Palacio is at one end of the city park, the Church of San Jeronimo at the other.  The street I was standing on, on the left side of the Palacio leads to the market.  Below is a picture from a recent blog post that shows you the market -- the big dominant orange structure -- from Cerro de las Culebras.

We started our rounds of the market going in on the left side.  You can see that there are low rooves to the left of the orange building.  It's down a step from the main market building, and there are lots of venders in this area, too.  In the picture below, Jim is talking to one of the women who come and sell small amounts of stuff which they have grown or made at home. They line the sidewalk.  He bought two gigantic chilex extranjeros.

 

Below are some boxes of I think pasta.  The sack is full of a seed used to make a sauce called pipián. Here in our area, pipián also is what the seeds used are called.   

Before we saw this bag of them (larger and clearer below) we thought pipián seeds were always green.  I think maybe pipián is kind of a collective name for squash seeds used to make pipián sauce which is just delicious.

Sorting tomatoes.  Ninety nine point nine percent of the tomatoes sold here are these Roma tomatoes which cook well.

 

Just beyond the tomato merchants you can see down an aisle with beans and such in sacks at a booth on the left and a restaurant on the right.  These restaurants are very popular.

 

This was a display at one of the stalls.  The plastic bags have veggies already chopped to put in soup.  The vendors do the chopping.  I've bought them and they sure make it easy to make good chicken soup. The gray stuff on the right is the prized corn fungus called huitlacoche which indeed is delicious.  You can also see apricots and two kinds of mushrooms, which are in season now.

 

At this stall, the vendor was selling home-made stuff along with some other things.  I didn't get the whole sign in the picture, but to the  of right of the big pot, she was selling chile with panza, or tripe (stomach).

 

Stuff at another stall includes manteca de cerdo or pork lard, mole de Xico (the brown stuff) and goat cheese -- the white rounds stacked up next to the mole sign. You can also see next to Jim's hand and arm bundles of dried corn leaves for making tamales.

 

We now move into the main part of the main building.  Here  you see the traditional pinafore/aprons which are ubiquitous in our colonia among middle-aged and older women.

 

Jalapeño chiles on shelves:

 

This is a stall which changes its products with the seasons.  Now you see Halloween masks and plastic flower dispays for The Day of the Dead.  The man is making these displays. Above the masks, if you look carefully, you can see the structures the man is using as the basis for the floral displays.  And a lot of other stuff.

 

The stands you see on either side of the walkway below are where I buy a lot of our everyday fruits and vegetables.

 

This is La Perlita, the butcher shop where I buy meat in Coatepec. It is on the outside of the main market building.  It is supposed to be pasture-grown beef.  It sure isn't fat and juicy like in the States, but it tastes good and is, if beef can be, probably better for the environment.  It is definitely not industrial beef.  The store also sells pork and sheep meet and chicken and sausages.

 

Leaving the market we pass a bakery with displays of sweets for the Day of the Dead.  Below are chocolate covered skus:

 

See the little candy coffin to the left below?  It has a little sugar skeleton in it.

 

These are, I think, covered with sesame seeds.

 

We drove to the supermarket, Chedraui.  I had to get pet food and a couple of super markety things.  Chedraui has EVERYTHING you could want in a supermarket.

Here is a picture of signs over the produce which I thought might interest you with their non-English names.  And you'll notice, Chedraui is in hot competition with the Wal-Mart in Xalapa.

 

The market I think is a lot more fun.  Generally the produce is better in the market -- fresher -- and the prices are, too.  

That's all for now. Shopping here is not routine.