Saving Indigenous Mother Corn Seed

Native corn seed is under threat

Maize the cultural backbone of the Mexicans

Corn seed production in Mesoamerica represents one of the last bastions of agriculture that does not function solely in the logic of the global market. In Mexico, over half of farm families produce for self consumption and an estimated 35% of corn production never makes it to the market.
Maize is, at once, a food staple, a social safety net, a survival strategy and a cultural icon. Its ten-thousand year history in the region parallels the rise of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, and today corn continues to be the anchor that enables indigenous communities to preserve their way of life.

Transnational companies converting self sufficient Mexicans into consumers of processed food

Nothing could be further from the goals of the great globalisers. Transnational companies have long sought to convert “the people of corn,”-as the holy book of the Maya the Popol Vuh calls them-into consumers of processed food. The World Bank continues to pressure mightily for a new land anti-reform, that would eventually abolish Mexico’s ejidos (collective farms) and indigenous communes-legal forms of collective land-use recognised in the Mexican Constitution.

Contamination of native corn seed with GMO varieties

The discovery in 2001 that native corn seed had been contaminated with genetically modified (GM) varieties catalysed the movement in defence of corn. This latest market offensive against the Mexican peasant economy has its roots in the rise of corn seed imports from the United States. Under the terms of GATT then later under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico has been importing an average of five million tons of corn a year. Since the U.S. widely cultivates GM corn, experts estimate that at least a quarter of Mexico’s U.S. corn imports are genetically modified.GM corn seed from the United States rapidly found its way into Mexican cornfields. Since Mexico is a world center of origin for maize, the contamination became an international issue of food security. For Mexican indigenous and peasant communities, it became a question of survival.

Corn or Maize is difficult to save seed from

Corn is the most difficult vegetable to save the seed from.One hundred plants of a variety are needed. These communities have cultivated their own maize varieties for generations, selecting and saving the best seed to steadily improve their crops to suit their own climatic and culinary needs. If their crops become widely contaminated, their native varieties will be overrun and huge stores of biodiversity lost.To add insult to injury, these small farmers would also be liable to pay Monsanto and other GM seed manufacturers for inadvertent use of their product. It sounds absurd, and it is, but numerous courts have upheld the newfound right to contaminate under intellectual property laws. The practice of seed-saving and local food systems would be destroyed in favour of integration into transnational circuits that produce seed (and the chemical fertilisers and pesticides required to grow them) and processed food products.

Action to protect native maize varieties

To protect their native maize varieties from contamination, some Mexican communities have carried out their own genetic testing, carefully conserved native varieties and demanded a moratorium on GM corn imports. In workshops in some of Mexico’s most remote rural areas, monolingual Indians study genetic modification and the dangers of contamination to develop their own programs to defend their corn.

The simple message, “In Defense of Corn,” is also becoming a banner of the movement against neoliberal globalisation. Although they number in the hundreds of thousands, maize activists rarely gather in large demonstrations or marches, however their power to convene bodies and imaginations is increasing. Via Campesina, the global expression of the movement, groups 97 organisations in 43 countries that in turn represent millions of small farmers. This organisation, including thousands of Mayan farmers from the surrounding area, was by far the largest contingent in the marches in Cancun at the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organisation.

Native Corn has become the mine canary

What Mexican writer Ramn Vera calls “the invisible movement” has profound implications for the future. Perhaps the most symbol-laden plant on the planet, native corn has become the mine canary for globalisation plans in the countryside. If it dies, it means a life-and-death battle has been lost. If it continues to be a major source of physical, spiritual and cultural sustenance, there may be hope yet.
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