New Report Details Grassroots Resistance to the Corporate Power of Agribusiness
A new report from Friends of the Earth International, Combat Monsanto, and La Via Campesina provides snapshots of frontline struggles against Monsanto and other biotech corporations pushing genetically modified (GM) crops.
“This report demonstrates that the increasingly vocal objections from social movements and civil society organizations are having an impact on the introduction of GM crops.” said Josie Riffaud from La Via Campesina.
The testimonies and analysis contained, the authors say, aim to inspire and unite consumers, activists and communities against the abuses carried out by Monsanto and other biotech corporations around the world.
“Who will hold Monsanto responsible for the global depletion of biodiversity, soil erosion, and violations of peasant rights wrought by the application of petroleum-based inputs required by industrial agriculture?” asked Dena Hoff of the National Family Farm Coalition / La Via Campesina North America. “Farmers worldwide are resisting for food sovereignty, but the rest of the world must join us,” she added.
The small-holder and organic farmers, local communities and social movements around the world that are resisting and rejecting Monsanto, and the agro-industrial model that it represents are chronicled in the report. These vocal objections from social movements and civil society organizations are now having an impact on policy-makers tasked with regulating the food and agricultural sectors in relation to GM crops and pesticides, as this report demonstrates.
“The majority of Europe’s public remains opposed to GM food production, and several countries in Europe now have national bans on Monsanto’s MON810 maize and BASF’s Amflora potatoes, despite the strong pressure of the biotech industry and of the European Commission to lift those moratoriums,” said Héloise Claudon from Combat Monsanto.
The use of GM crops destroys essential crop diversity, homogenises food, and eradicates associated local knowledge and culture. In this and other ways social inequality, poverty and the exploitation of natural resources are able to thrive within the global food system, which focuses on profit generation rather than sustainable food production and food sovereignty.
The combined area of all GM crops covers just 3% of agricultural land worldwide. 97% of agricultural land around the world remains GM-free. GM crop cultivation is predominately limited to a few countries: 90% of GM crops are grown in the US, Brazil, Argentina, India and Canada. Almost 60% of GM crop field trials are carried out in the US.
Anti-GM actors still face many challenges though, in France and elsewhere. These include food crop trials, moves to undermine existing moratoria in Europe, and aggressive tactics being deployed by the industrial food lobby. This also involves using the French and EU courts to have the French ban on Monsanto’s MON810 maize overturned, although the French government has since
announced that it intends to maintain the ban anyway.
Monsanto and other biotech corporations are also facing legal challenges in the US, including lawsuits aimed at stopping GM crops spreading into national wildlife refuges.
Policy-makers must take a new approach, say the authors: by empowering local communities, sustainable initiatives can render GM crops, pesticides and other agribusiness practices obsolete.
To view the report, go to: www.viacampesina.org/downloads/pdf/en/Monsanto-Publication-EN-Final-Version.pdf
