18

CORN CULTURE AND

DANGEROUS DNA:

Real and Imagined Consequences of Maize

Transgene Flow in Oaxaca

Kathleen McAfee

Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

“Genetic pollution” in Oaxaca has become Exhibit A for critics of crop geneticengineering and the focus of angry charges and counterclaims by biotechnologyresearchers. Like many disputes about science and technology, this one is linked toeconomic and resource-control conflicts. To understand why this controversy is sointense, we need to locate the scientific findings and claims about crop gene flowwithin the broader frame of international agro-food restructuring and itsconsequences for agrarian communities. The dispute over maize transgene flow inMexico has unfolded in the context of U.S. and “life industry” agendas for tradeliberalization and worldwide expansion of intellectual property rights. Equallygermane is the cultural and economic significance of corn and of small-scale farmingin Mexico, where rural livelihoods have been hard hid by neoliberal reforms. Whetheror not the contested report in Nature (November 2001) stands up to scientific scrutiny,it is probable that the introgression into Mexican local maize varieties of Bt transgeneconstructs from genetically engineered U.S. corn has occurred, despite Mexico’s banon GE grain planting. The possible risks posed by traveling transgenes are not wellunderstood, but there are plausible scientific reasons for concern about possiblehazards to agricultural biodiversity and agro-ecosystems. More troubling, however, arethe likely consequences –for local food security, cultural survival, and nationaleconomic sovereignty– of the private ownership of staple-crop genetic resources andof the influence on trade policy, agricultural research, seed and food markets, andfarming-system options of a small number of powerful states and transnational firms.Processes at the global level (e.g., in the WTO), regional level (e.g., trade pacts in theAmericas) and local level (farmers’ successes in agroecology and organizing) suggestthat the political space for alternative agendas may be opening. Despite theprivatization and narrowed focus of much research funding, genetics, ecology, cropscience, and participatory research have much to contribute to widening this space byevaluating sustainable-farming options as well as biotechnology applications. Keywords:Biotechnology, gene flow, agriculture, globalization, intellectual property, food trade

Introduction: The maize gene flowcontroversy and its context

In November 2001, the journal Naturepublished evidence that genetically engi-neered DNA, probably from U.S.-growntransgenic corn, had somehow found itsway into the genomes of local maize va-rieties in the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca,

Mexico, a part of the region where maizewas first domesticated. (Quist andChapela 2001). The report, by two re-searchers from the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley, was echoed in theinternational press, challenged by otherresearchers, and sparked an uproar thatpitted ardent advocates of crop geneticengineering (GE) against their equally

Journal of Latin American Geography, 2(1), 2003

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 19

sertion by some anti-GE activists—ormass-media caricatures of their posi-tions—that the “genetic pollution” ofancient maize landraces threatens thevery soul of Mexico. By some of theseaccounts, laboratory-made transgeneswill produce dangerous food and willtrigger the rapid depletion of maizebiodiversity, the loss of ecologically andculturally vital crop varieties, and theconsequent, final demise of autonomousIndian communities. Reality, as usual, ismore complex. Consumption oftransgenic Bt corn,2 if it is at all hazard-ous, is probably less so than the myriadhealth risks from contaminated water,pesticide exposure, and malnutritionalready endured by many Mexicancampesinos. Moreover, Mexican maizelandraces in even the most isolatedmountain plots are far from “pure”:maize genetic erosion long predates ge-netic engineering, and most Mexicanejidos and indigenous communes are al-ready drawn into transnational circuitsof exchange and accumulation and ofcultural transformation, not all of itunchosen or unwelcome.

Despite this complexity, the argumentof the GE critics has a great deal oftruth at its core. I will defend this claimon two main bases. The first is techno-scientific, to wit: transgene introgressionis very likely to have occurred in Oaxacaand elsewhere in Mexican centers ofmaize genetic diversity, whether or notthe Nature submission demonstratedthis. It is even likely that some farmersare intentionally introducing transgenesinto their creolized corn landraces. It ispossible that today’s relatively simple,single-trait transgenes such as Bt-toxinconstructs may not contribute to the lossof valuable maize traits, but the riskcannot yet be ruled out. The ecologicaleffects of Bt toxins are not wellunderstood, and future, more complextraits may have more damaging effects.Meanwhile, until much more is knownabout the consequences of transgeneflow, the massive importing and sale ofU.S. genetically engineered corn inMexico constitutes a large-scaleexperiment with results that are unpre-

fervent opponents. The controversysoon involved the Mexican government,international genetic and crop scientists,transnational biotechnology corpora-tions, indigenous villagers, Latin Ameri-can critics of neoliberalism,environmental organizations, and “anti-globalization” and food-sovereignty ac-tivists from dozens of countries. Theapparent detection of a few invisible,sub-molecular genetic constructs incorn collected from mountain farmers’fields quickly became a cause celèbre foragro-biotechnology defenders anddetractors alike.

Most genetic scientists claiming au-thority in the matter have treated it as ascientific methodological problem re-solvable by more accurate testing. How-ever, it has proved impossible to fix themaize gene-flow dispute within the con-fines of techno-scientific discourse.Like other technologies, plant breedingand crop genetic engineering are bothproduced by, and further constitute, par-ticular social relations and patterns ofresource control; conflicts over tech-nologies may signal contestations ofthose patterns of control. Disputesabout crop biotechnology today reflectstruggles over agricultural markets andover land, labor, genes, and other food-producing resources.

These struggles have deep roots inMexico. Embodied within a singlekernel of suspect Mexican maize is aturbulent history of crop domesticationand original civilization, conquest andexpropriation, industrialization and newempires nourished by this versatilegrain, and rural restructuring and massmigration linked to Mexico’s greenrevolution and to trade liberalization.Now, there is a very real possibility thatrural communities and Mexicanagriculture more broadly are about to behit by another crippling blow.1 In thiscontext, campesino activists and theirallies see the upholding of Mexico’scurrent ban on the planting oftransgenic corn as critical to theirlivelihoods and their survival as culturalcommunities.

It is easy to discount the alarmist as-

20 Journal of Latin American Geography

dictable, possibly dangerous ecologically,and certainly irreversible. This experi-ment is being carried out without theknowledge or consent of most of thoselikely to be affected.

The second reason why the GE criticshave a case is political-economic.Whether or not transgenic maize turnsout to endanger biological diversity, thewidespread planting of transgenic cropsin the remaining “GMO-free” countriesof Latin America—still most of the re-gion as of this writing—would help tobring about significant changes in agri-cultural production systems and in hemi-spheric and international trade.Confirmation of the presence oftransgenes in territories where transgeniccrops may not now legally be plantedwill make it all the more difficult forthose states to produce certifiably “non-GMO” corn and to retain the option ofa precautionary policy position on ge-netically engineered crops.3

In addition, the full-scale adoption ofGE crops in Latin America would accel-erate current trends toward greater in-dustrialization and external-inputdependency in farming. It wouldstrengthen the competitive advantage ofthe United States in Latin American andworld food and fiber markets and wouldspeed the incorporation of Latin Ameri-can food systems into a global agro-foodcomplex dominated by a small numberof powerful conglomerates. Even iftransgene flow in Oaxaca turns out topose little direct danger to maize genepools, as most crop-GE proponents andsome GE critics contend, these political-economic trends are likely to underminefurther what remains of Mexico’s self-provisioning, corn-growing communi-ties, and with them, the repositories ofmaize germplasm that those communi-ties have created and conserved.

Traveling transgenes: the techno-scientific controversy

The troubling implications of reportedtransgene flow in Mexican maize.The debate among scientists andactivists that followed the publication of

the Quist and Chapela report in Naturewas highly politicized from the start. Forcritics of crop genetic engineering, Quistand Chapela’s apparent discovery wasimportant for at least four reasons. First,in their view it confirmed thevulnerability of genetically diverse localmaize landraces to “genetic pollution”by transgenic plants (ETC Group 2002).4GE critics and some genetic and cropscientists are concerned that the transferof powerful genetic capacities from suchbio-engineered crops—in this case, theability to produce toxins lethal to cornear worms and other lepidopteranpests—may confer a survival advantageto the recipient plants (Regal 1994;Ellstrand 2001; Lutman 1999; Stewart et.al. 1997; cf. Louwaars et al. 2002). If so,they might out-compete and displaceother crop varieties or their wild relativesand ancestors, such as teosinte in thecase of maize. Were this to occur in aregion of great crop genetic diversitysuch as Southern and Central Mexico, itcould further endanger the diminishinggene pools of maize and the wild plantspecies from which maize was derived.Particular maize and maize-relative genesmight become extinct, and with theirdisappearance, unique traits might belost. A tremendous variety of maizetraits are valued by Mexican and otherAmerican peasant agriculturalists whohave selected them over centuries to suitlocal growing and food preferences(Brush 1998; Bellon 2001). Some of thisendangered genetic information mayeven prove vital in the future to thecontinued productivity of corn farmingworldwide, given that new traits must becontinuously added to maize and othercrops as crop pests evolve and climaticconditions change (Thrupp 2000).

Second, the Nature report seemed toprovide evidence that possibly-danger-ous transgenes can travel farther andfaster than biotechnology advocates hadbeen willing to admit.5 The phenomenonof gene flow from transgenic or conven-tional crops, while not controversial inprinciple, was little noted or studied untilrecently, as new biotechnological toolshave made genes easier to trace and since

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 21

the controversies surrounding transgeniccrops have raised questions about itsconsequences (Ohio State University2002). Regulatory policies for GE cropsin the United States have generally nottaken gene flow into account, but ratherhave been based on the premise thathuman-made gene constructs willremain confined to the crop and theharvest cycle into which they wereintentionally placed.6 Especially in thecase of corn and other partially or fullyout-crossing, wind-pollinated crops, thisis clearly not the case. Transgenes cantravel in pollen and becomeincorporated into the genomes ofpollinated plants miles away through theprocess of normal plant sexualreproduction, as some would-beproducers of “GMO-free” corn andcanola (rapeseed) oil in the United Statesand Canada have learned to their dismay.Cross-pollination can occur betweencrop plants and wild plants of relatedbut distinct species (Radosevich et. al.1996; Darmency et. al. 1998). A relatedconcern is that pollen or root exudatesfrom corn and other plants with geneti-cally engineered toxic properties mayharm soil biota, useful pest predators, orwild species such as swallowtail, andpossibly, monarch butterflies (Donneganand Seidler 1999, Hilbeck et. al. 1998,Sears et. al. 2001).

Third, GE skeptics used the occasionof the Oaxaca maize report to draw at-tention to the little-understood problemsof another kind of gene flow, horizontalgene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer isthe movement of genetic material fromone organism to another by means otherthan sexual reproduction. It is nowknown that microorganisms such as bac-teria are capable of exchanging geneticmaterial directly from one species to an-other, and that this occurs commonly(Tappeser et al. 1998). DNA from geneti-cally modified food can be transferred tobacteria in the human gut (UKFSA2003). Gene transfer has been observedbetween distantly related species: a para-sitic bacterium and the adzuki bean bee-tle (Kondo et. al. 2002), and probablyoccurs frequently among microorgan-

isms and plant tissues in soil. The conse-quences are unknown but it is plausiblethat they may enable the development ofnew or more virulent pathogens. Oneneed not postulate horizontal gene trans-fer in Oaxaca or in the U.S. Midwest toexplain the unexpected presence oftransgenes in non-GE fields: pollinationby nearby plants grown from a fewtransgenic seeds offers a sufficient expla-nation. However, the flurry of specula-tion about the source and theconsequences of transgenes in Oaxacanmaize has highlighted just how little isknown about the myriad ways in whichgenes interact and move within and be-tween organisms, and what the effects ofsuch phenomena may be. Growing rec-ognition of the scope of this uncertaintyis challenging the biotechnology indus-try’s portrayal of genetic engineeringtechno-science as entirely safe, predict-able, and precise.

A related issue highlighted by advo-cates of tighter GE regulation is thepleiotropic effects of genetic engineer-ing (Benbrook 2000). Pleiotropic effectsare multiple, unintended traits andbehaviors that have resulted from thelaboratory manipulation of genomes, forexample, greater fragility of plant tissuesand increased vulnerability of somecrops to fungal disease (Coghlan 1999;Saxena and Stotzky 2001) The standardmethods of genetic engineering — intro-duction of synthesized genes, powerfulgene-expression promoters derived fromviruses, and vectors designed to breakthrough evolved barriers to inter-speciesgene transfer – sometimes have unpre-dicted consequences that are not relatedto the traits that the GE plants weredesigned to exhibit. The activities ofnatural genes are sometimes “silenced” asa result of genetic manipulation directedat different genes. These and otherinteractions among transgenes and otherelements of natural genomes are poorlyunderstood. Some worry that suchunanticipated effects of genetic engineer-ing may result in damage to soil mi-crobes and other agronomicallyimportant organisms in farm ecosystems(Donnegan et al. 1999; Altieri 2000;

22 Journal of Latin American Geography

Obrycki et al. 2001; See McAfee 2003afor further discussion).

Some advocates of crop genetic engi-neering recognize these uncertainties butare confident that their effects can becontrolled or compensated for. Whetheror not this is possible in large-scale,monocrop fields typical of U.S. agricul-ture remains to be seen. In smaller-scale,more diversity-based farming systems indeveloping countries, unintended conse-quences may be more common as well asharder to detect and control. The milpascultivated by Mesoamerican smallholderstypically support a variety of crop rota-tions and/or intercropped plantings ofmaize, various legumes, and foragecrops, as well as squash and other vegeta-bles. Such farming systems may be morevulnerable to “non-target” effects of Bttoxins on pollinators or nitrogen-fixingmicrobes or other accidental damage tointercropped plants or soil biota.

Finally, even if the Bt gene flow in theSierra Juarez in not confirmed, the Na-ture report brought into sharp relief theproblem of presuming – as U.S. govern-ment negotiators and biotechnologyfirms have generally done – that the sameagricultural goals, management models,and biotechnology regulations areapplicable in the United States and in theglobal South. Pending further study ofthe benefits and risks of GE crops, theMexican government banned the plant-ing of transgenic corn in 1998. However,the importing of U.S. transgenic corn forhuman and animal consumption is legaland is itself a source of controversy, as Iwill explain below. Most of the scientistswho have commented on the Oaxacacase suspect that the probable origin inOaxacan fields of the transgenicpromoter constructs identified by Quistand Chapela, if indeed they are present,would have been U.S. Bt corn that wassold either as grain for tortillas or asanimal feed, or possibly corn seedsbrought home by seasonal migrants tothe United States.

In either case, the presence oftransgenes in Oaxaca would expose theinefficacy of Mexican state policy in-tended to restrict the country’s grain

production, at least for the present, toconventional crops. More than that, itpoints to the inappropriateness of anydeveloping-country policy for the man-agement of GE crops that is modeledafter U.S. regulations. U.S. rules presumea system of fully commercialized agricul-ture, in which varieties are uniform,seeds are purchased, and harvests aresold: a system in which seeds are onesort of commodity and food is a differ-ent commodity entirely. In Mexican andother partially self-provisioning peasanteconomies, the cycle of agricultural lifeis both more local and more closed. Thesame seed may be the source of life bothin the sense of the next day’s meal andthe next season’s planting material.

Retraction, rebuttals, and counterattacks: TheGE industry on the defensive

As soon as the Quist and Chapelafindings became known, the Mexico-based International Maize and WheatResearch Center temporarily ceased col-lecting and distributing samples fromthe region (CIMMYT 2001).7 CIMMYTis the World-Bank affiliated primary in-ternational research center and seedbank for maize. Although no evidenceof transgenes in the CIMMYT corngermplasm collections has been found todate, or at least, none has been an-nounced, CIMMYT scientists have ac-knowledged that if Bt corn has beeninadvertently or deliberately plantednearby, the introgression of transgenicconstructs into varieties in farmers’ fieldvarieties is virtually inevitable. In a state-ment issued in May 2002, CIMMYTmaintained that while much remains un-known about the effects of transgeneintrogression and of environmental andfarmer selection pressures on genetic di-versity, it is unlikely that a single-genetrait such as Bt toxicity would in it itselfresult in a loss of maize genetic re-sources (CIMMYT 2002).

However, CIMMYT also noted theneed for more research on ways to limitthe diffusion of “genes that should notbe openly and freely distributed… intothe environment”, such as genes for theproduction of pharmaceutical sub-

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 23

stances or future, more complex multi-gene constructs (ibid., p. 4). In themeantime, CIMMYT stated, it was tak-ing extra care to ensure the integrity ofthe maize seeds in its collection.CIMMYT collections are shared widelywith companies and researchers world-wide: the center provided 25,086 cornseed samples in 1999 alone (Koo et al.2003: 2). In light of the uncertainty sur-rounding the effects of erranttransgenes and given the volatility of sci-entific debates and international negotia-tions over biotechnology policy,CIMMYT could not afford to be sus-pected of supplying seeds with syntheticgenes or proprietary components toplant breeders or farmers. NGO criticsaccused CIMMYT of placing its own in-terests above those of Mexicancampesinos by failing to prioritize thetesting of farmers’ varieties in situ fortransgenic contamination and the studyof its consequences (ETC Group2002b).

Mexico’s National Institute of Ecol-ogy (INE), a branch of the Departmentof the Environment and Natural Re-sources, initiated its own investigation assoon as the Nature report came to light.8A research team headed by JorgeSoberón, secretary of the country’s Na-tional Commission on Biodiversity(CONABIO) and ecologist and INEpresident and ecologist Ezequiel Ezcurrareported at a number of internationalmeetings and to the Mexican press thattheir tests of corn kernels collected inOaxaca and in neighboring Guerrerostate had produced evidence of thewidespread presence of the sameCaMV35S promoter sequence reportedby Quist and Chapela (Mantell 2002).However, a scientific paper describingtheir findings was rejected by Nature in2002 (Science 2002).

By this time, nearly a year after theQuist and Chapela report was published,a highly polarized debate had alreadybeen running through the pages of Na-ture and other journals. It began in April2002, when Nature published a commu-nication from two genetic researcherswho accused Quist and Chapela of

sloppy science. They acknowledged that“transgenic corn may or may not be hy-bridizing to traditional maize cultivars inMexico” but maintained that Quist andChapela’s apparent discovery ofintrogressed transgenic sequences wasprobably an artefactual result of a flawedtesting procedure. The researchers alsoheld that Quist and Chapela’s secondclaim—that the transgenes had becomefragmented and redistributed in themaize genomes—was unprecedentedand improbable (Metz and Futterer2002: 600-601).

In the same issue, Nature’s editor tookthe unusual step of backing off from thejournal’s initial, implied endorsement ofthe peer-reviewed Quist and Chapela re-port. Citing “inconclusive” discussionsamong Quist and Chapela and additionalreviewers and “diverse advice received”,Nature concluded that “the evidenceavailable is not sufficient to justify thepublication of the original paper.” (Na-ture 2002: 602) Nature’s tepid statementwas less than a “retraction”, although itwas thus characterized in press and bio-technology industry accounts, but it wascertainly out of the ordinary for a scien-tific journal to publish editorial doubtsabout its own peer-reviewed publication.Many research reports that pass peermuster and are published are later foundto be incomplete, inaccurate, or subjectto contrasting interpretations; this is howthe practice of normal scientific inquiryin the Kuhnian sense proceeds (Kuhn1962). But the debate about transgenicmaize was about much more than “nor-mal” science: all participants are involvedin one way or another in a high-stakesstruggle over the future of theagrobiotechnology industry and the re-lated restructuring of transnational agro-food systems.

Nature’s prevaricating statement wasaccompanied by a published communi-cation by six of Quist and Chapela’s owncolleagues from the Department ofPlant and Microbial Biology of the Uni-versity of California, Berkeley, who alsoargued that the original findings had tohave been false, and a reply by Quistand Chapela offering further evidence in

24 Journal of Latin American Geography

defense of their study (Kaplinski et al.2002: 601-602; Quist and Chapela 2002:602). The subsequent Nature issue car-ried a letter from Andrew Suarez, also aU.C. Berkeley colleague, and 11 otherecologists and plant scientists from ma-jor U.S. research universities (Suarez et al.2002). They accused Nature of compro-mising its objectivity by overruling theresults of its own peer-review processand by making a special, suspect case ofa particular report, a practice they found“particularly troubling when articles arerelated to economic or politicalinterests”. An accompanying letter bythree other U.C. Berkeley and San Fran-cisco researchers was explicit about whatthey called “webs of political and finan-cial influence that compromise the ob-jectivity of [Quist and Chapela’s] critics”(Worthy et al.: 897). The writers statedthat Quist and Chapela’s critics in Natureall had “competing financial interest intheir published contributions” whichthey had failed to disclose.9 In a replypublished in Nature, two of those ac-cused of conflicts of interest avowedthat their concern “was exclusively overthe quality of the scientific data and con-clusions” and that the implication thattheir past private-sector funding hadcompromised their science was itself “athreat to academic freedom” (Metz andFutterer 2002b). An additional letterfrom a U.C. Berkeley researcher chargedChapela himself with a conflict of inter-est because Chapela was an outspokencritic of the Berkeley-Novartis arrange-ment (note 9) and because he serves onthe board of Pesticide Action Network,“an advocacy group opposing geneticallymodified organisms” (Kaplinsky 2002b).

Whatever the motives of these indi-vidual authors, there is no doubt that theNature controversy has been influencedby very active “political and economicinterests”, including private-sector bio-technology firms as well as non-govern-ment organizations (NGOs) critical ofcrop genetic engineering. Immediatelyafter the Quist and Chapela report waspublished, a series of internet postingsby scientists and others active in promot-ing crop GE —including electronic mes-

sages from apparently fictitious authorstraced to affiliates of a public-relationsfirm used by the Monsanto corpora-tion— condemned the report as incom-petent and as evidence of irrational fearof genetic technologies (Pearce 2002). InFebruary 2002, 144 civil-society groupsissued a statement accusing the biotech-nology industry of using “intimidatory”techniques to “silence” dissident scien-tists (Mann 2002). In response, theAgBioWorld Foundation, headed by theplant molecular geneticist and pro-GEcampaigner Dr. C.S. Prakash, issued itsown statement “In Support of ScientificDiscourse in Mexican GM Maize Scan-dal” (AgBioWorld 2002).

Crop genetic engineering on the defensiveThe embattled and, in some cases,

compromised positions in which geneticand crop scientists with close industrylinks were finding themselves may havemade some of these criticisms more stri-dent. Since at least 1980, molecular biol-ogy and other areas of high-technologyresearch in universities and their spin-offenterprises have become increasingly ori-ented toward profitable applications, re-stricted by patents, and funded bycorporate grants, contracts, and public-private partnerships. By the late 1990s, agrowing number of public-sector scien-tists, and even Berkeley ChancellorRobert Berdahl, were expressing con-cern that corporate priorities were shap-ing basic research agendas and thatintellectual-property restrictions were in-hibiting access to research tools and ma-terials and blocking the exchange ofscientific knowledge, even among col-leagues and students (Eyal and Press2000).

In addition, biotechnology firms arefacing the consequences of hyperbolicpredictions of molecular-genetic mira-cles. In medical biotechnology, hopes foreffective, clinically-approvable “genetherapies” have not yet been fulfilled. Inagriculture, the performance oftransgenic crops has been, for the mostpart, mediocre (McAfee 2003a). The GEcrop varieties that have been plantedcommercially are not generally higher-

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 25

yielding: they were designed to respondto proprietary herbicides (mainlyMonsanto’s Roundup and other brandsof glyphosate) or to produce their owninsecticides (Bt toxins), not to producemore food. Although glyphosate-toler-ant (“Roundup-Ready”) and Bt crops canreduce labor and machinery needs, theycost more than conventional seeds andhave been much more profitable foragrochemical/seed firms than for farm-ers (Boyd 2003). In most cases,transgenics have not enabled farmers toreduce their use of pesticides. In someplaces, they have already begun to stimu-late the evolution of glyphosate-tolerantweeds, and the evolution of Bt-resistantinsects appears inevitable (Benbrook2001; McAfee 2003a; Pollack 2003).Meanwhile, crop genetic engineers haveyet to develop profitable new productsto follow the relatively simple, first-gen-eration transgenic applications. Predictedvitamin-A rich and drought-resistant orsalt-tolerant crops are still in the devel-opment stages. “Life-industry” firms arestruggling to cope with low profit mar-gins in their agricultural divisions, inves-tor apprehension, farmer skepticism, andconsumer mistrust that has spread fromEurope to the United States and manycountries in the global South.

It was in this context that GE advo-cates responded to the Nature report.Under other circumstances, the disputedinterpretation of a small set of labora-tory results might have remained an ob-scure technical discussion of interestonly to specialists. After all, the Quistand Chapela findings have not been dis-proved, and even their most vehementcritics acknowledge that gene flow fromtransgenic maize will occur. Neverthe-less, many biotechnology advocatestreated Nature’s editorial retreat as if itsomehow had laid to rest all reasonabledoubts about the environmental safetyof crop genetic engineering. For theirpart, anti-GE campaigners highlightedthe original Nature report as damningevidence of the immediate danger frompromiscuous transgenic crops to agricul-tural and other biodiversity and to thesurvival of indigenous and agrarian soci-

eties, and as further grounds for opposi-tion to the U.S. government agenda forthe promotion of biotechnology in glo-bal environmental and trade negotia-tions.

The international politics oftransgene flow

Trade wars and transgenic cropsThe intensity of reactions on both

sides of the Oaxaca gene-flow contro-versy must be seen in the context of theconflict over biotechnology policy thathas been gaining momentum in interna-tional trade talks and environmental trea-ties during the past 15 years. Thesetensions rose on January 9, 2002, whenU.S. Trade Representative RobertZoellick denounced what he called Eu-rope’s “Luddite” and “immoral” morato-rium on transgenic grains and foodproducts. “European antiscientific poli-cies are spreading to other corners ofthe globe”, he told reporters. (Becker2003). In May, the U.S. asked the WorldTrade Organization to declare the Euro-pean Union moratorium on geneticallymodified (GM) agricultural products ille-gal.

To understand U.S. motives and theE.U.’s defiant response, it is useful tolook first at the economic geography ofgenetically engineered crops. The world’smain GE-crop producers are the UnitedStates (66 %), Argentina (22%), Canada(6%), and China (4%) (James 2002).10

The two biggest players—and competi-tors—in global food trade, both importsand exports, are the United States andthe European Union, which have hadnearly opposite policies on the commer-cial planting and consumer labeling ofgenetically engineered crops. Most Euro-pean countries and New Zealand do notpresently permit the commercial plantingof transgenic crops. Japan and Australiahave approved a few crops for limitedcommercialization, but both countriesare attempting to keep their food im-ports and exports “GMO-free”. SouthKorea and Taiwan allow limited GE-food imports but require them to belabeled.

26 Journal of Latin American Geography

The majority of states in the globalSouth have not approved commercialplanting of GE crops, although manyhave not explicitly banned transgenicsand some are permitting GE-crop fieldtrails (Nap et al. 2003).11 As in the caseof Mexico, some governments may notbe aware —at least officially— of thedeliberate or inadvertent planting oftransgenic seeds in their territories.When they have bargained as a bloc ininternational treaty negotiations, as theyoften do, developing countries have gen-erally stood for stricter biotechnologyregulation, for the labeling of GE organ-isms and products, and against the globalstandardization of patents and other in-tellectual property rules for organisms,genes, and biotechnology products andraw materials (“genetic resources”)(McAfee 2003b). However, developing-country policies are varied and in flux,under considerable and conflicting pres-sures from their trade partners or hoped-for buyers of their exports, internationalagencies, industry lobbyists, and foreignand domestic NGOs.

The government of India, in the faceof vigorous domestic dissent, approvedthe commercial planting of Bt cotton in2002, but its regulators have not yet per-mitted planting or importing of GEgrains or other food crops and products.China has invested substantially in GEtobacco, encouraged farmers to plant Btcotton, and promoted research on doz-ens of other GE crop applications, butbacked off in 2002 from its endorse-ment of transgenic food imports. SouthAfrica allows some GE crops and hostsits own biotechnology research, butother Southern African governmentsmade world headlines in 2002 when theyrejected unlabeled shipments of food aidin the form of U.S. yellow corn.12 Bio-technology proponents depicted Africangovernments as irrational, heedless oftheir peoples’ hunger, and pawns in theprotectionist trade machinations of theE.U. (Paarlberg 2002). Most of the af-fected Southern African states, exceptZambia, later agreed to accept grainshipments even if they were likely tocontain transgenics, but preferably if the

grain were milled so that it could not beplanted.

In Latin America, as noted above, Ar-gentina is already heavily involved in GEcrop production: mainly of soy, but alsosome maize and cotton. It is the world’sthird largest soy exporter. About 80% ofArgentine soy fields are planted in herbi-cide-tolerant varieties marketed by theMonsanto corporation.13 But even Ar-gentina is leery of allowing transgenicvarieties of those crops that are exportedto “GMO-sensitive” markets (Burachickand Traynor 2002). Chile allows the im-porting and multiplication of transgenicseeds for export but not for planting.Paraguay and Bolivia have had temporarybans on GE crops. Mexico, Uruguay,Bolivia, and Colombia have approvedfield testing of a variety of GE grainsand horticultural crops. At the sametime, legal battles and policy debates onGE crops and foods are underway indozens of countries, including Mexico,Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin Ameri-can states. Policy on intellectual propertyrights (IPR), especially provisions thatwould affect the development and ex-port of patented crops, drugs, and ge-netic-engineering methods, is also beingcontested in negotiations over regionaltrade accords, particularly the U.S.-pro-posed Free Trade Area of the Americas(FTAA).

The position of Brazil, as the region’slargest economy and one of the majorglobal agro-exporters, will be critical tothe future of GE crops in LatinAmerica. Brazil sponsors its own na-tional research in agro-biotechnology,and the government of Enrique Cardosoapproved commercial planting of herbi-cide-tolerant soy. However, legal plantingof GE soy has been blocked by Braziliancourts in response to a case brought bynongovernmental organizations.14 Thereis considerable public opposition to GEproducts; environmental activists andmembers of the militant rural settlers’organization Movimento Sem Terra haveoccupied government offices to demandfuller debate on the consequences oftransgenics. “Brazil’s stubborn resistanceto GM crops took the bio-tech compa-

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 27

nies by surprise,” the U.K. Guardian re-ported (Branford 2002).

As part of its global strategy,Monsanto had bought up seedcompanies in Brazil and waspoised to dominate bio-techfarming. The Brazilian govern-ment had expressed its supportfor GM crops and was helping tofund a pounds 250m factory thatMonsanto was building in thenorth-east of the country tosupply the whole of SouthAmerica with the raw materialsfor Round-Up. In early 2000,Monsanto even imported GMseeds to sell to farmers in the fol-lowing planting season, after theanticipated authorisation. (ibid.)

Brazil is the world’s second-largest soyexporter after the United States. If Brazileither legalizes GE soy, or if the spreadof GE crops and transgenes “contami-nates” too much of the country’s soycrop, the country could lose its presenttrade advantage in exporting soy to Eu-ropean and Asian countries. A spokes-man for the American SoybeanAssociation told the New York Times,“We are very hopeful that last dominowill fall. That’s why the environmentalistsare putting up a stink down there in Bra-zil. They know if that goes, it’s all gone”(Barboza 2001). As of August 2003, theagriculture minister under the new ad-ministration of Luiz Ignácio Lula daSilva was keeping policy options open.

Biotechnology policy and the control of nationalfood production

Many governments have cited healthconcerns and the unknown ecological ef-fects of transgenics, such as thetransgene introgression reported byQuist and Chapela, as reasons for theirno-GE policies. But more than this is atstake, as the Brazilian case illustrates. ForLatin America, the breaching of thepresent “no-GMO” border between theUnited States and most its Southernneighbors would further strengthen thecompetitive advantages of the heavily-

subsidized U.S. agro-food/biotechnol-ogy complex in Latin American and glo-bal markets for seeds, grains, and foodproducts. Transnational agribusinessfirms which have invested deeply in cropGE are well aware of this, as are anti-GEactivists and the U.S. governmentofficials who defend corporateagrobiotechnology interests in interna-tional fora. As their concerns havegrown about U.S. export losses resultingfrom biotechnology regulations, U.S.-based agribusiness and biotechnologyfirms have assisted in and lobbied forgovernment activities in support of cropgenetic engineering (Vaughan 2002).

If Latin American governments andagro-producers adopt GE crops, or if“genetic pollution” prevents them fromsegregating transgenic from conven-tional products, this will foreclose theiroption of maintaining non-GMO mar-kets in Europe and Asia. It is likely to ac-celerate the acquisition of domestic seedand farm-input enterprises bytransnational firms, with the consequentnarrowing of crop-variety and farm-management options for commercialfarmers. Embrace of crop genetic engi-neering by Latin American states wouldalso be accompanied by increased pres-sure for the adoption and enforcementof U.S.-style patents on crop varieties,genetic information, and genetic engi-neering technologies, and for the privati-zation, or partial privatization throughprivate-sector partnerships, of nationalagricultural research and developmentactivities. These changes would furtherconstrain the ability of public-sector sci-ence to serve national and, especially,small-farmer needs. Most significantlyfor Latin American domestic politics,maintaining a “no GMO” policy is oneof the few means by which Latin Ameri-can countries can preserve a degree ofcontrol over the structure of their agro-food systems and the source of theirfood supply. The ending of resistance toGE crops and products, in combinationwith other trade liberalization measures,would facilitate increased imports ofU.S. and Canadian grain and horticulturalcrops, further imperiling the economic

28 Journal of Latin American Geography

survival of small and medium-scale farm-ers and agricultural enterprises across theregion.

The fate of Mexico’s corn economyas a consequence of trade liberalization,accelerated by the North American FreeTrade Agreement (NAFTA), illustratesjust what many developing-countryfarmers and agricultural entrepreneursfear will be the consequence of more“free-trade” provisions, such as thoseproposed in the draft of the FTAA pact.Mexican corn imports, mainly from theUnited States, surged 12-fold from 1995to 2001, from 396,000 metric tons in thelast pre-NAFTA year to an annual aver-age of 4,854,000 metric tons (USDA,cited in Vaughan 2002), as the Mexicangovernment has implemented NAFTAprovisions, some of them ahead ofschedule, and as it has phased out sup-ports for maize and other staples andcash crops. Imports of U.S. grain wereexpected to soar further in 2003 as a re-sult of NAFTA requirements for furthertariff reduction. Both U.S. and Mexicantariffs were eliminated for many crops in2003, although limited maize tariffs mayremain until 2008 (Skorburg 2002b). InDecember 2002, campesinos and small en-trepreneurs, NGOs, and political oppo-nents of the Vicente Fox administration,protested these changes; farmers rodeon horseback into the hall of Congress.Preparations for blockades along theU.S.-Mexico border in January led thegovernment to postpone some of itsplanned actions. Dialogue between theFox government and NAFTA oppo-nents, including 12 organizations in coa-lition under the slogan “El Campo NoAguanta Mas” (The Countryside Can’tStand Any More) reached an impasse.

Feelings run high because the effecton Mexico’s maize-producing small-farmsector has already been severe. An esti-mated 15 million Mexicans depend di-rectly on corn from plots of five acres orless for income and sustenance. Whilemany continue to produce maize, an un-known but clearly substantial number ofthese small-scale producers are no longerable to sell the portion of their cropsthey had relied on for cash income

(Weiner 2002). Farmers I interviewed inJuly 2003 around Nochixtlán, Oaxaca,reported recent 30 – 40 percent declinesin the prices they are now offered fortheir maize, to the point where sales nolonger cover their costs of production.Adding to the crisis, they said, grain deal-ers now will buy only one color ofmaize, which they mix with importedU.S. corn and then sell the product witha deceptive “local” label. The farmersface similar problems with their sales ofbeans and livestock, both of which arenow under-priced by U.S. imports. Theseindigenous Mixtec growers name 10different groups of maize landraces andmany more individual strains maintainedby family networks, as well as 12 typesof wheat, 22 varieties of pulses andbeans, and about 200 types ofhorticultural or medicinal plants thatthey cultivate or collect. Much of thisagricultural biodiversity may be lost ifmore of them are forced by economicpressure to abandon their lands.

Fox’s agriculture minister, JavierUsabiaga, an agribusiness magnate fromGuanajuato, has said that farmers whocannot survive the changes must simplyfind other work. For many, this can onlymean migration to the United States.The importing of U.S. corn has not ledto compensation in the form of lowerstaple food prices: the price of tortillashave risen 40% in real terms, corn priceshave fallen about 70% in real terms sinceNAFTA took effect (Ackerman et al.,2003). In addition, concerns about foodand farm safety have led to the introduc-tion of at least six congressional resolu-tions related to GE crops, and Mexico’sown commercial farm sector fears inun-dation by foreign firms. According to amember of the government’s BiosafetyCouncil, “There is concern over increas-ing economic control by the multination-als. The idea that biotechnology onlybenefits big multinational corporationshas very deep roots in Mexico” (Pegg2002).

Implementation of the Free TradeAgreement of the Americas (FTAA) ascurrently proposed would open marketsin the Americas to U.S. exporters of bulk

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 29

agricultural commodities: maize andother coarse grains, soy, cotton, and rice(Skorburg 2002a). Such U.S. agribusinessgains might put farmers in SouthAmerica, where the U.S. now sells few ofthese commodities, in a predicamentsimilar to that of Mexican corn farmers.The FTAA would also bring about inten-sified competition with Latin Americanproducers of fruits and vegetables, sugar,poultry, meats, and dairy products (ibid.).

Farmers and agro-enterprises in otherworld regions are facing similar competi-tive pressures. In African and manyAsian countries, too, trade accords, struc-tural adjustment conditionalities, WTOrequirements, and the conversion ofgovernment agencies to the gospel ofcompetitive efficiency have brought anend, for better or worse, to many formsof state support for agriculture, intensi-fying rural crises in many regions. Mean-while the “free trade” double standardunder which Europe and the U.S. con-tinue to subsidize their vast farm exportsgenerates deepening anger in countriesthat have been told to liberalize tocompete.15 It is in this context that wecan understand why the “Oaxaca maizescandal” has been the focus of suchheated debates in international aidagencies and in the corridors of trade,environmental, and intellectual propertynegotiations.

Mexican maize in global bio-diplomacyThe Nature report added fuel to fires

of controversy that were already ablazein multilateral negotiations over foodtrade, food safety, genetic engineering,and intellectual property, and led Mexi-can farmers’ organizations to add theirvoices to these disputes. In April 2002,Miguel Ramírez Domínguez, Presidentof the Communal Property Commis-sariat of Capulalpan de Méndez, Ixtlán,Oaxaca, cited the Nature report andlinked the local gene-flow problem to thefate of farming worldwide. He tolddelegates to Biosafety Protocol talks inthe Hague that transgenic “pollution…puts the world’s food security at risk sincefarmers around the world rely on thesegenetic resources to create new varieties

which adapt to changing environmentalconditions.” Ramirez called upon theCommission for EnvironmentalCooperation (CEC) of NAFTA toundertake “a thorough investigationabout the consequences of the presenceof genetic contamination in theindigenous maize varieties and effectiveremedial measures.” (Greenpeace 2002).In June 2002, the CEC Secretariat an-nounced its intention to prepare aspecial report upon the potential effectsof transgenic corn on traditionalvarieties of maize in Mexico, citing anearlier CEC finding that “insufficientknowledge on the impact of emergingtechnologies, such as the use oftransgenics, [is] one of North America’smost important concerns tobiodiversity” (CEC 2002). 16

At the second World Food Summit inRome in June, 2002, I listened to Mexi-can farmer representatives telling del-egates that synthetic genes in local cornplots are a danger not only to local andglobal food supplies but to the culturallife of indigenous Mexicans. AlbertoGómez of the Mexican national Unionof Regional Peasant Organizations(UNORCA) and Aldo Gonzáles Rojoof the Unión de Organizaciones dela Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca and theinternational peasant confederationVía Campesina pointed out thatLatin American counter-trend to U.S.-led hemispheric integration. Thehostility to genetic-resources biopros-pecting by many indigenous peoples’organizations and the opposition totransgenic crops by some farmers’ andenvironmentalist NGOs are certainlyexpressions of resistance to globalizationon neoliberal terms under the U.S.umbrella.22

Not only rural Mexican NGOs haveraised alarms about the Oaxaca case. Atthe Johannesburg Earth Summit(Rio+10) in August, South Africa’sBioWatch and other African NGOscited the Oaxaca study as further reasonto resist the “dumping” of cheap U.S.corn in national markets or as food aid.In addition to driving down localfarmers’ prices, they argued, it might

30 Journal of Latin American Geography

endanger locally-adapted maize landracesin Southern Africa’s own, secondarycenters of maize diversity. In October2002, peasant and environmentalistorganizations in the Philippinesdemonstrated at the annual meeting ofthe Consultative Group for InternationalAgricultural Research, the main globalnetwork of green-revolution agriculturalresearch centers and seed banks. Theycharged the CGIAR and its membercenter, CIMMYT, with failing toundertake proactive investigation of theextent and possible effects of transgeneflow in Mexico. These and othertransnational NGOs have called for aworldwide moratorium on the release oftransgenic crops in centers of agriculturalbiodiversity, which are primarily in theglobal South.18

International NGO coalitions andsome European and developing-countrygovernments have been raising concernsabout GMOs in international negotia-tions since at least the early 1990s, whenthe issue emerged during the drafting ofthe Convention on Biological Diversity.In recent years, in the context of therapid expansion of GE-crop acreage andexports and the proliferation of private,intellectual property rights (IPR) claimson genetic information and biotechnol-ogy tools, GE critics have found a morereceptive audience among delegates to in-ternational economic and environmentaltreaty talks (McAfee 2003b). During thistime, however, the international accept-ance of biotechnology products and therecognition of intellectual property hasbecome a diplomatic priority for theUnited States in these same fora.

Thus, when the Oaxaca gene-flow is-sue came to a head, disputes over bio-technology and IPR were alreadyunderway in the World Trade Organiza-tion (WTO) and its sub-agreements onAgriculture (AoA), Technical Barriers toTrade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary(SPS) measures, and Trade-Related Intel-lectual Property Rights (TRIPs), as wellas the Codex Alimentarius food-safetytalks. Biotechnology, particularly geneticengineering designed to prevent cropsfrom making viable seeds (“Terminator”

technologies), remains controversial inconferences of the parties to the Con-vention on Biological Diversity confer-ences. Access to crop genetic resourcesand the patenting of genes and geneti-cally altered crop varieties were the keypoints of contention in the finalizationof the International Treaty on Plant Ge-netic Resources for Food and Agricul-ture, negotiated in November 2001.

The global accord most likely to affectthe ability of countries to adopt or rejectGE crops and products is the CartagenaProtocol on Biosafety. The Protocol, asub-agreement of the CBD, was finallyhammered out in January 2000, despite11 years of unflagging opposition by theUnited States. It was pushed through byan alliance of the European Union andthe Southern-country negotiating blocof Like-Mind Countries under the ableleadership of Ethiopia’s Tewolde BerhanGebre Egziabher. Latin America delega-tions to the Protocol talks split into twocamps: the majority backed the South-ern-bloc position in favor of a strongaccord, but three grain-exporting states –Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay – alliedwith Australia and the United States inopposing the accord until the 11th hour.The United States is not expected toratify it and has discouraged countriesfrom doing so.

When the Protocol took effect onSeptember 11, 2003, it had been ratifiedby 60 countries. It provides countrieswith a basis in international law forchoosing to reject or postpone theimport of transgenic planting orbreeding materials. It thus could be acounterweight to WTO provisionswhich might make countries liable tosanctions for “unfair trade practices” ifthey decline imports on the grounds thatthey are genetically engineered. Theaccord requires that shipments ofgenetically engineered seeds, plantingmaterials, and animals meant to bereleased into the environment be labeledand accompanied by detailedinformation regarding their transgeniccomposition and any availableinformation about their likely environ-mental effects. In a concession to the

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 31

United States, treaty negotiators agreedthat GE exports meant for processing,food, or animal feed would not have tobe labeled as transgenic.

The Protocol also cites the “precau-tionary principle” and states that coun-tries may adopt a “precautionaryapproach” to decisions about biotech-nology-product imports. Importantly, itspecifies that they may take “socioeco-nomic considerations”, in addition topotential adverse effects onconservation and sustainable use ofbiological diversity, into account in theirdecisions about which categories ofimports they will accept. Thus, theProtocol will enable countries andcommunities to retain the option ofdeclining imports of living transgenicmaterials. However, countries thatdecline transgenic imports can be re-quired to specify the scientific groundsfor any such decisions. Conflicts overthe Protocol may soon take the form ofdisputes over what constitutes “soundscience” in evaluating “potential adverseeffects” of “living modified organisms”,although the Protocol text states clearlythat “Lack of scientific certainty due toinsufficient relevant scientific informa-tion and knowledge…” shall notprevent a country from rejectingtransgenic imports.19

This is the context in which theNature submission debate became soinflamed. These international disputesover biotechnology and science policyare so hard-fought, I submit, becausethey are an expression of a deeper,underlying struggle over the globalpolitics of food security and food tradeand over the trajectory, pace, and termsof economic globalization.

Rewriting global trade rules to promotebiotechnology

Agricultural and biotechnology poli-cies have been central to efforts by theUnited States to reconstruct the rules ofinternational trade to advance U.S. eco-nomic interests. Objections to U.S. bio-technology policies have also been aprominent aspect of resistance by othercountries to those U.S. efforts. Even

while the United States was losingground in traditional industrial sectorssuch as steel, successive Washington ad-ministrations have worked to maintainthe large volume of agricultural exportsthat have long been critical to U.S. eco-nomic growth (Busch et al. 1991;McAfee 2003a). They have also, increas-ingly, sought to advance the U.S. com-petitive advantage in newer,high-technology exports, including theproducts of medical and agriculturalbiotechnology. The GATT IV tradetalks, which began in 1986 andculminated in the launching of theWTO in 1994, reflected these two goalsmost clearly in two of the sub-agreements that distinguish the WTOfrom previous trade regimes, theAgreement on Agriculture (AoA) andthe Trade-Related Intellectual PropertyRights Agreement (TRIPs).

The WTO Agreement on Agriculture:Introduced at the insistence of the U.S.,the AoA brought food trade and farmpolicy into the realm of global economicgovernance for the first time. In thename of “free trade” in agriculture, it re-quires countries to phase out quotas andother means by which many have triedto limit their agricultural imports inorder to protect domestic producers.The United States and its main agro-export competitor, the European Union,continue to argue over which of their re-spective programs of state support forfarmers and land management are really“subsidies” that constitute discrimina-tory trade practices prohibited under theWTO. Neither has eliminated the gov-ernment assistance to agriculture thatpumps their agro-export volumes whilekeeping world food prices near or belowthe costs of production. Instead, thethe 2002 U.S. farm-policy law increasedsubsidies to politically influentialagribusiness constituencies, and the E.U.Common Agricultural Policy, revised thesame year, left the annual level Europeanspending for farm-sector support nearlyunchanged. Meanwhile, a variety of pro-tectionist measures by the E.U. and, es-pecially, the U.S. still limit their importsof agricultural and other products from

32 Journal of Latin American Geography

would-be developing nations. In con-trast, a combination of WTO rules,conditionalities attached to develop-ment-agency loans, requirements of bi-lateral trade and aid pacts, and threatsof trade sanctions have forced manySouthern governments to reduce food-import restrictions such as importlicenses and to decrease or end farmer-and food-price supports andagricultural-input subsidies (Murphy1999; Madeley 2000).

WTO Trade-Related Intellectual PropertyAgreement: TRIPs was initiated and pro-moted by an international business coa-lition of European, Japanese, andU.S.-based multinational corporations,with U.S. government encouragement(Drahos 1999). The United States, themain force in the WTO, wantedmember governments to open theirmarkets to foreign exports andinvestments, especially in industrieswhere the U.S. is relatively strong, suchas agriculture, financial services,computer electronics, entertainmentmedia, and biotechnology. TRIPsstipulates that WTO parties mustrecognize patent claims “in all fields oftechnology” (TRIPs Article 27.1,WTO1996). 20 By requiring countries to recog-nize and enforce property rights to cropvarieties and the chemicals they dependupon, as well as biotechnology tools,techniques, and expertise, these traderules foster the expansion of estab-lished biotechnology industries, whichare strongest in the United States, andraise barriers to entry against newerprivate or public biotechnology enter-prises (Kenney 1998; Boyd 2002).

Outside of the WTO, the UnitedStates Departments of State, Com-merce, and Agriculture are working in avariety of ways, often in cooperationwith private companies and organiza-tions such as the U.S. Chamber of Com-merce, to promote internationalacceptance of genetically engineeredcrops and related technology and inputsexports by U.S.-based firms. Amongthese are capacity-building programs, bi-lateral trade talks and behind-the-scenesarm twisting, and regional pacts such as

the FTAA.US “Capacity Building” for agro-biotech-

nology: The U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment and other federal agenciesare working actively in Latin Americaand other developing and “transitional”countries to build a constituency of pro-fessional agro-biotechnology expertsand official supporters of genetic engi-neering and related intellectual propertylaws. In 2001 and 2002, the Foreign Ag-ricultural Service of the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture sponsored seminarsin Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uru-guay, and Paraguay to fill “the informa-tion gap that widely exists in thesemarkets” (U.S. FAS 2002). The U.S.spent more than $90 million in trade ca-pacity-building assistance to the Ameri-cas in 2002 alone (U.S. TradeRepresentative 2003).21 These activitiesincluded biotechnology “orientation”visits for Chilean officials to U.S. gov-ernment agencies and privatecorporations involved in GE agricultureand a seminar in Mexico to “dispel themyths and misconceptions” surroundingbiotechnology (Ibid.). CommerceSecretary Donald Evans told the U.S.House of representatives that theDepartment’s Market Access andCompliance Unit conducts internationaloutreach around the world to promotebiotechnology. Evans explained that“MAC’s role lies in ensuring thatmember countries abide by their com-mitments under the WTO…to governbiotechnology through science-based,nondiscriminatory and transparentmeasures” and that the agency seeks toensure that other countries do not usebiotechnology regulatory policies suchas requirements for biotechnologyproduct labeling, traceability, andprecaution “as disguised barriers totrade.” (Evans 2001).

The Free Trade Agreement of theAmericas: The FTAA, proposed byGeorge Herbert Bush in 1990, wouldcreate a hemispheric “free trade” zone in34 American countries, excluding onlyCuba. The “free trade” term is deceptivein that the draft FTAA provisions wouldbring about restructuring of trade regu-

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 33

lations and restrictions, not their elimina-tion. The pact as proposed would reducecontrols on the movement of capitalacross borders and the ability of govern-ments to favor domestic enterprises orparticular uses of national resources(FTAA 2002:Chapter on Agriculture, Ar-ticle 18). Some Latin American govern-ments fear that this would favor theeconomic success of the region’s morepowerful nations and firms, includingagrochemical/seed conglomerates suchas Monsanto, without compensatoryguarantees of access for their exports toU.S. markets, particularly since Com-merce Secretary Evans has said that U.S.farm subsidies and market access couldbe addressed at the global level, not inthe FTAA talks (Katz 2002). The oppor-tunity to increase its exports to LatinAmerica would be particularly welcomein the wake of U.S. losses of agro-exportmarkets in Europe, Korea, and othercountries that are not accepting GE-crop products.

U.S. negotiators hope to use theFTAA to stiffen hemispheric standardsfor IPR enforcement, for example, by re-quiring damage payments for IPR viola-tions. “Because the United Statesmaintains a decisive competitiveadvantage in high-technology,knowledge-based industries that aredependent on IPR, this is one of themost important topics for U.S.negotiators” (U.S. GAO 2001). But whilethe U.S. has proposed IPR rules thatwould go beyond those of TRIPs, otherFTAA delegations want to retain theright to not allow patents on living or-ganisms, or even to prohibit such pat-ents (Ibid.). Another proposal thatwould favor U.S. exporters inbiotechnology, agriculture, and foodprocessing calls for “harmonization” ofFTAA countries’ safety standards andcertification procedures in line with theSPS section of the WTO (FTAA 2002V2:14). Those rules stipulate thatdecisions to import or reject productsmust be “science based”. A coalition of33 agribusiness and biotechnology tradeorganizations told U.S. Traderepresentative Zoellick in April, 2002,

that

[I]t is critical that the USgovernment maintain andstrengthen its long-held strategyof promoting science-basedlabeling polices that are consistentwith US domestic regulation. Anyshift away from defendingscience-based policies could havea damaging effect on exports ofagricultural commodities by accel-erating a growing trend away fromthe use of biotech ingredients inexported food products (Vaughan2002: 16).

Latin American critics contend thatthis would make it harder for their coun-tries to reject possibly-hazardous GEproducts, while giving the U.S. more ba-sis for rejecting Latin American prod-ucts, because the interpretation of whatis “safe” and “scientific” has beenmodeled on processes used in the UnitedStates.

Conclusion

The Western Hemisphere is the fore-front of globalization and has been sofor more than 500 years. But the regionhas now experienced two decades oftrade liberalization and other policy re-forms intended to foster its further inte-gration into global circuits ofproduction and exchange. For mostcountries and most sectors of thepopulation, globalization in the form ofincreased imports, exports, and foreigninvestment has done nothing to diminishthe damages of structural inequality,oppressive debt, and the continuing, netoutflow of the regions’ human, natural,and financial resources. For the majorityof people, even in the few countriessuch as Chile which have seen relativelysteady GDP growth, another decade ofdevelopment has been lost. Disillusionwith the promise of globalization isdeepening.

Scientific and political controversyover crop genetic engineering hasescalated in the context of deepening

34 Journal of Latin American Geography

economic crisis in both American con-tinents. The United States proposes tomanage that crisis by means of hemi-spheric economic integration under aprogram of intensified neoliberalism,with few concessions to the social andecological traumas that such a programentails and with no reform of existinginstitutions that reinforce thedominance of the dollar. Argentina,the country in most acute economiccrisis at the start of the new century,has perhaps followed the Washingtonneoliberal prescription most faithfully.Argentina also happens to be theworld’s second-largest producer, afterthe United States, of geneticallyengineered crops. While Argentina’scurrent tribulation cannot be blamedon genetic engineering, it has becomepoignantly clear that the combinationof economic liberalization, close link-age to the dollar, and large-scale, ex-port-oriented agriculture has not savedthe country from hunger and fiscal dis-aster.

The stalemated FTAA talks suggestthat the U.S. “free trade” program forthe hemisphere is generating anxiety,resentment, and resistance, even as it isendorsed rhetorically by some LatinAmerican states. The current effortsby some Latin American governmentsto assert their sovereignty over geneticresources and their autonomy in foodtrade, farm policy, and biotechnologyregulation are among the signals of aLatin American counter-trend to U.S.-led hemispheric integration. Thehostility to genetic-resourcesbioprospecting by many indigenouspeoples’ organizations and theopposition to transgenic crops bysome farmers’ and environmentalistNGOs are certainly expressions of re-sistance to globalization on neoliberalterms under the U.S. umbrella.22

Provisions in the emerging regimesof global environmental governanceprovide some bases for policies that – ifgovernments make good use ofthem – could help to counteractincorporation into globally-consolidated, industrial agro-food

systems dominated by a fewtransnational giants. These provisionsinclude commitments under the Con-vention on Biological Diversity to thetraditions of “local and indigenouscommunities” relevant to biodiversity,to the conservation of agriculturalbiodiversity in situ (in the communitiesand ecosystems where it has beendeveloped), and to the fair sharing ofthe benefits of biodiversity. Otherpotentially useful tools are therecognition by the Cartagena Protocolon Biosafety of the validity of the“precautionary principle” and therelevance of “socio-economic”considerations” to biotechnology regu-lation and trade. Another is thelanguage in the WTO TRIPsAgreement that allows countries tolimit patents on living things for thesake of the environment or publichealth and order. Most important maybe the general principle in these andother global institutions that countriesof the global South require “specialand differential treatment” under therules of aid and trade.

Is it possible that there is a double“paradigm crisis” in Latin America: anincipient challenge to the Washingtonconsensus and a questioning of thebenefits of industrialized export-oriented agriculture, and that thereis a linkage between the two? Thisis the view of adherents of “foodsovereignty”, the goal of a growingmovement of rural-based organizationsand their professional allies inenvironmental NGOs, academic cen-ters, and public-sector agriculturalagencies. The international foodsovereignty movement comprises or-ganizations of peasants and farmlaborers, herders and fishers, andinternational NGOs, such as GeneticResources Action International, FoodFirst, Focus on the Global South, andRede Social, that coordinate exchangesamong them. Most of its membersoppose genetic engineering as astrategy for agriculture, but not be-cause it affronts an idealized “harmonywith Nature” or the “purity” of tradi-

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 35

tional crop landraces. Rather, they arewary of what they perceive as its ecologi-cal unsoundness and negative socioeco-nomic consequences.

Food sovereignty as these groups de-fine it requires broad access to land andother food-producing resources, as wellas laborers’ rights. “Sovereignty” is lessan attribute of traditional polities than apolitical-economic space for multiple, al-ternative developments, locally imaginedbut internationally networked. Ratherthan eschewing national states, these or-ganizations want to see state regulatoryand rural development agenciesstrengthened and held accountable.Through farmer-to-farmer exchanges,they develop and apply principles ofagroecology, using traditional and newmethods, low inputs of external energyand chemicals, and intensive reliance onsite-specific farmer intelligence. For them,agroecology is more than a technologicalmeans of conserving biodiversity andincreasing productivity, although somehave done so with impressive success(Uphoff 2002). It is also a means towardgreater social equity and local controlover food sources and supplies, and thecore of a social and environmental alter-native to neoliberalism. It remains to beseen whether the goals and ethos of foodsovereignty will resonate with growingdesire among some Latin Americangovernments for greater autonomy intrade, food, and development policy.23

Genetic engineering alters the funda-mental cellular processes of living, re-producing organisms. In the words ofbiotechnology enthusiasts, it “createsnew forms of life”. To anti-GE activists,it “gives pollution a life of its own”. Be-cause of this, genetic engineering is aparticularly powerful technology. Someof its effects are latent and nearly impos-sible to predict; therefore it is especiallydifficult to evaluate in terms ofconventional, short-term, risk-benefitanalysis. But beyond these problems, andmore frequently overlooked, is the factthat assessing the likely biophysical andsocial impacts of errant genes and ofcrop biotechnology more generally

requires a more multifacetedconceptualization of “sound science”and analysis of more than thetechnology per se.

Farmers in the Oaxaca’s Sierra dohave reason to be concerned about theintrogression of manufactured DNAinto their corn plants, but probably notbecause eating the harvest of thoseplants will damage their families’ health.It may turn out that they have little rea-son to fear that their transgenic visitantswill crowd out valued local maize traitsor damage soil organisms and surround-ing ecosystems. At this point, there is noway of knowing for sure. But there areother, more likely causal pathwaysthrough which the undetected travels oftransgenes may represent a threat toMexican indigenous and campesino live-lihoods and cultural survival. Toonarrow a focus on the techno-scientificachievements or the biological hazardsof genetic engineering risks losing sightof the greater dangers to agriculturalsustainability and rural well-being posedby the global restructuring of agro-foodsystems and the growing dominance ofthe industrial paradigm in agriculture.The terms of the debate over “geneticpollution”, which has focused mainly onthe reliability of laboratory data, havediverted needed attention from the par-ticular ways in which the proliferation oftransgenes contributes to this aspect ofglobalization.

Acknowlegements

Research for this article was carriedout with support from the Yale Councilon Latin American and Iberian Studies,the Dean of the Yale School of Forestryand Environment Studies, the Universityof California President’s PostdoctoralFellowship Program, colleagues at theUniversity of California at Santa Cruzand Berkeley, and Diana Liverman andother members of the Conference ofLatin American Geographers. Twoanonymous reviewers and ProfessorGerard Voorscher of Wageningen Uni-versity provided very helpful sugges-tions.

36 Journal of Latin American Geography

Notes

1 If remaining Mexican tariffs on cornimports are phased out by 2008, accord-ing to the schedule set by the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement, andespecially if Mexico drops its policyagainst planting transgenic grain, evenmore US corn will enter Mexican mar-kets and a larger portion of it will betransgenic. Markets for local corn andoptions for obtaining non-GM seed willshrink further in Mexico.

2Bt corn carries genetic instructions,originally obtained from Bacillusthuringiensis bacteria, for the productionin all of the corn plants’ tissues of oneof several crystalline proteins that aretoxic to certain plant-eating insects. It ismeant to reduce the need to spray insec-ticidal chemicals.

3 For example, soy plantations now ex-panding into Brazilian Amazonia aim formarkets where certification requirements(China) and GMO bans or futurelabeling requirements (Europe) favornon-GMO soy, which the U.S. is unableor unwilling to provide. Some of Brazil’ssoybeans, further south are grown fromillegal, herbicide-tolerant seeds obtainedvia Argentina. Whether Brazil makesGM soy legal, and how “non-GMO”labeling and certification rules will be in-terpreted under evolving E.U. and Chi-nese regulations, will affect and will beinfluenced by WTO and regional tradenegotiations, political developmentswithin Brazil, and pressures from theU.S. and the Monsanto corporation.

4 Transgenic organisms are those thatcontain genetic material synthesizedfrom DNA obtained from other species.An organism can also be engineered toalter the location, number, or expressionof its own genetic material. It wouldthen be genetically engineered, but nottransgenic in the strict sense.

5 Some advocates of crop genetic en-gineering now argue that potentially haz-ardous gene flow can be contained bythe use of genetic-use restriction tech-nologies, or GURTs, which will be de-signed to prevent plants from producing

fertile seeds or to switch other genefunctions on or off. NGO critics havedubbed them “terminator” or “traitor”technologies. Such genetic-engineeringapplications are still in the early devel-opment stage, and it is not at all clearwhether they might be used reliably andsafely to restrict gene flow or for otherpurposes.

6 A recent U.S. National Academy ofSciences evaluation of the scope andadequacy of current regulation found itto be improved but still inadequate andin some respects, superficial. The 2002NAS study of the U.S. Animal andPlant Health Inspection Service’s(APHIS) regulation of transgenic plantsrecommends longer-term, post-com-mercialization monitoring, evaluationof environmental changes at largerspatial scales in both agricultural and inadjacent, unmanaged ecosystems, andgreater scientific and public input (NAS2002).

7 The news of transgene flow inMexico was reported in a September 27news story in Nature before the Quistand Chapela evidence was published(Dalton 2001).

8 In January, researchers at the Na-tional Autonomous University ofMexico and the Center for Investigationand Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV)at the National Polytechnic Institute an-nounced that their own preliminarystudies confirmed the presence inOaxacan maize samples of the sameCaMV promoter sequence that Quistand Chapela reported; further testswere planned (Mann 2002).

9 Some of these reputed conflicts ofinterests stemmed from thecontroversial alliance at the timebetween the U.C. Berkeley Departmentof Plant and Microbial Biology and themajor agrobiotechnology firm Syngenta(formerly Novartis). In an arrangementbrokered by Gordon Rauser, then headof Berkeley’s College of Natural Re-sources, a research wing of Novartiswas allowed a degree of input intocollege research-funding decisions. Thecorporation also obtained option rights

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 37

to patents on discoveries by the Plantand Microbial Biology department, po-tentially including findings resultingfrom research funded by public sources.In exchange, the department received a$25-million dollar grant and access tosome of the company’s plant-geneticdatabases.

10 In 2002, the Chinese governmentannounced a policy shift away fromtransgenic crops. Its crop biotechnologyresearch continues, but China began re-quiring that soybean importers obtaincertificates stating that their goods haveno adverse effects on humans, animalsand the environment.

11 According to a September 2003 re-port by the International Food PolicyResearch Institute, “In the developingworld the approval and cultivation ofgenetically modified (GM) crops islargely limited to the commercialproduction of insect-resistant cotton inArgentina, China, India, Mexico, andSouth Africa. Approvals of GM cropsused for food or feed lag far behindcotton: a single transgenic maize event(an instance of genetic modification)has been approved in the Philippinesand South Africa, and a single transgenicsoybean event has been approved inArgentina, Mexico, South Africa, andUruguay. Argentina has also approvedsix GM corn events for cultivation. Incontrast, 11 food and feed cropsrepresenting over 47 transgenic eventshave been approved for cultivation inthe developed world.” (Cohen et al.2003)

12 U.S. aid and trade officials, who ap-parently saw the famine crises as a publicrelations opportunity, were at first un-willing to provide grain from non-GEsources or cash to purchase surplusgrain from other countries in Africa andelsewhere. In September 2002, USAIDchief Andrew Natsios asked U.S. food-aid organizations to distribute grainshipments containing GE maize indrought-stricken Southern Africancountries, and to offer public statementsendorsing the safety and suitability ofGE grain and food. Most of themedeclined to do the latter.

13 This transgenic soy can withstandspraying with glyphosate, a herbicidemade by Monsanto and other firms thathave licensed the right to useMonsanto’s patented glyphosate-tolerance technology. Glyphosate can beused on fields after crop seedlings haveemerged in order to kill all othervegetation. This reduces labor andmachinery costs, although not seedcosts nor total amounts of pesticidesprayed (Benbrook 2001). Herbicide tol-erance, mainly to glyphosate, has beenthe main application of crop genetic en-gineering —about 76% of GE cropscontain the trait— and glyphosate salesaccount for the greater portion ofagrobiotechnology profits. (Boyd 2003)However, strains of weeds that canwithstand glyphosate can evolve wherethe chemical is sprayed, as in the case ofmost pesticides. Resistant weeds are al-ready a problem in many places whereRoundup-Ready crops have beenplanted (Pollack 2003).

14 Meanwhile, it is widely acknowl-edged that some Brazilian farmers haveplanted smuggled transgenic soy beans,especially in regions near the borderswith Argentina and Paraguay, whilefarmers in other parts of Brazil are try-ing to maintain the “GMO-free” statusof their crops.

15 According to the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),protectionism and subsidies by industri-alized nations cost developing countriesabout US$24 billion annually in lost ag-ricultural and agro-industrial income(IFPRI 2003).

16 Topics of concern identified by theCEC “include, inter alia, the relationshipbetween the production of traditionalmaize varieties and the conservation andsustainable use of megadiversity inMexico; the effects of trade liberaliza-tion in the farm sector, effects ofnontraditional corn imports on the con-servation of traditional maize varieties;and the effectiveness of domestic policymeasures in place in Mexico, includingthe moratorium on planting transgeniccorn varieties, and on protecting tradi-tional maize varieties.”

38 Journal of Latin American Geography17 Gonzales stated: “The contamina-

tion of our traditional maize underminesthe fundamental autonomy of our indig-enous and farming communities becausewe are not merely talking about our foodsupply; maize is a vital part of our cul-tural heritage. The statements made bysome officials that contamination is notserious because it will not spread rapidly,or because it will ‘increase our maizebiodiversity,’ are completely disre-spectful and cynical.” Source: “En defensadel maíz y contra la contaminacióntransgénica,” news release issued by civilsociety organizations (CASIFOP,CECCAM, ETC Group, ANEC,CENAMI, COMPITCH, FDCCH,FZLN, Greenpeace, Instituto Maya,SER Mixe, UNORCA, UNOSJO, andRMALC) in Mexico City on WorldFood Day, October 16, 2001.

18 Among the most active of theseNGOs are the fast-growing farmers’federation, Via Campesina, withaffiliates on five continents, theMalaysia-based Third World Network,Genetic Resources Action Internationalwith headquarters in Barcelona,Greenpeace International, PesticideAction International, the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture andTrade Policy, the Canada-based ETCGroup, the Intermediate TechnologyDevelopment Group, several interna-tional coalitions of indigenous peoples’organizations, and numerous regionaland national farmers’, tribal, and envi-ronmentalist groups, especially in SouthAmerica and South and Southeast Asia.

19 Article 10 paragraph 6 states that“Lack of scientific certainty due to in-sufficient relevant scientific informationand knowledge regarding the extent ofthe potential adverse effects of a livingmodified organism on the conservationand sustainable use of biological diver-sity in the Party of import, taking alsointo account risks to human health, shallnot prevent that Party from taking a de-cision, as appropriate, with regard to theimport of the living modified organismin question as referred to in paragraph 3above, in order to avoid or minimizesuch potential adverse effects.”

20 Defenders of TRIPs maintain thatbiotechnology enterprises require glo-balized intellectual property regimes,without which investments in the nextgeneration of miracle crops (and drugs)will not be forthcoming. The TRIPsagreement is said to be necessary be-cause it requires WTO members to rec-ognize the proprietary claims of local orforeign citizens or enterprises to brand-name crop varieties andbiotechnological “inventions”. Underthese circumstances, we are told,biotechnological innovation will flourishand its benefits will be distributedthrough the global market.(Mossinghoff, 1998)

21 “The U.S. government is committedto providing trade-related technical as-sistance to developing countries in theAmericas so that these countriesparticipate fully in important trade nego-tiations, such as the Free Trade Area ofthe Americas (FTAA) and the WorldTrade Organization’s (WTO) Doha De-velopment Agenda, and trade effectivelyin a global environment.”http://www.revistainterforum. com/english/articles/110302eco_trade_capacity.htmlaccessed January 25, 2003.

22 Governments of some LatinAmerican and other tropical countrieshave paid little heed to local-level valuesof biodiversity. Instead, they have inter-preted CDB sovereignty provisions thatrecognize their sovereignty overbiodiversity as a sort of national-levelproperty right. Biotechnology enthusi-asts, and the overemphasis in the CBDtext on biotechnology, have contributedto their unrealistic hopes for incomefrom sales of genetic-resources access tobiotechnology industries. The result ofconceptualizing the values of genetic re-sources in terms of their internationalcommercial-sale prices has underminedthe interests of local communities thatmake use of and conserve genetic re-sources, while inhibiting biological re-search in some regions.

23 The decision by Brazil’s president toput aside the planned purchase of mili-tary jets to save resources to fightinghunger through his new Ministry of

Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA 39

Food Security is a symbolic but positivesign. Brazilian state support for the ex-pansion of soy plantations in Amazoniaat the expense of forests and of small cul-tivators there is not. Undoubtedly theMovimento Sem Terra, which advocatesgovernment aid for local food self-reli-ance, will press Lula to fulfill his promises.

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