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Mexican tortillas made from maize.
Soya research lab in Brazil.
wellbeing of Mexicans. So that’s
why for the people of Mexico it is
unthinkable for maize to be genetically
modified or for indigenous maize
varieties to disappear.
What is the main risk that people in
Mexico are concerned about regarding
GM maize?
One of the big arguments gaining
momentum in Mexico is that if they
introduce GM maize they run into
the risk of losing their own native
varieties, and they will be lost forever.
There will not be a way of recovering
them and seed banks are not enough.
They see the end of the life of
small farmers and the end of rural
communities whose livelihoods are
based on traditional cultivation.
What other risks are communities in all
three countries concerned about?
The risk of being left behind in
the technological race, which is
associated with losing sovereignty
and independence. Ministries of
environment worry about risk to
biodiversity, ministries of agriculture
tend not to. Those tend to be the most
influential organisations in terms of
policymaking in all three countries.
Consumers don’t think about risk. They
think about danger. It’s not a balancing
of pros and cons here. This is about
what’s going to happen and for them
what’s going to happen is certainly
bad. So there’s fear associated with
the implementation of GM. The sense
is one of danger rather than risk. In
all three countries there is definitely
a feeling that if science is to happen
it needs to be a national science. An
argument by pro-GM scientists is ‘look
guys we have to get into this. If we
don’t do it then others will do it for
us. If it’s going to happen it better be
our own rather than something big GM
companies sell to us’.
How are effects on biodiversity
being considered in any of the three
countries?
It’s at the centre of the discussions. In
Mexico it’s the whole idea of introducing
GM maize and losing the maize
biodiversity, which is not only about
maize, but the whole ecosystem, the
role of traditional agriculture and the
conservation of those ecosystems, which
preserves the biodiversity of the country.
In India it’s about the same, instead it’s
a little bit more upstream. It’s about if
we are developing GM in our labs but
we don’t know what it’s going to do to
our biodiversity. If we’re not sure about
our scientific capacity to actually prove
that it will not destroy biodiversity then
we cannot unleash it.
GM lab in Mexico.
Family farm in Mexico.
Farmer tilling cotton field in India.
Planting rice in India.
As far as the aims of the GMFuturos
project are concerned, what is an
example of what you would ultimately
like to achi