Environmental for Food Justice

Imagen de una protesta en el Centro de la Ciudad de México contra la trasnacional Monsanto. Photo by Pablo Ramos. Moderator’s Note: We have been waiting for news on this important case, the latest, and perhaps the last, in a ten-year campaign by Monsanto and its allies to impose transgenic maize products on Mexico. Due process in Mexico is a tangled and lengthy juridical process and Monsanto has exploited the ‘amparo’ rights clause of the Mexican Constitution to prolong and intensify its attacks on Indigenous and peasant farmers. These are the farmers who sustain the living seed libraries of the vital Mesoamerican Vavilov Center of Origin and Diversification of corn among more than three dozen other native crops that literally feed the world. This attack continued through the means of repeated challenges to successful court decisions and rulings verifying the legality of the ban on genetically engineered corn, soy, and other transgenic crops. The underlying rationale of the anti-GMO m...

Photo courtesy of  David Kamm Photoworks . GMO contamination of masa harina consumer products EATING BIOFUEL CORN IN YOUR NEXT TORTILLA? – A CALL TO ACTION! Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | April 14, 2017 In September 2000, Kraft, Inc. had to recall taco shells after admitting that they contained a genetically engineered corn that was not approved for human consumption. The case was a serious breach of biosafety and posed a significant health risk for persons with allergies to the proteins produced by the transgenic corn mistakenly added to the processed flour destined for the tortilla shells (see the original New York Times report). Now, we have a new incident involving the likely contamination of masa harina (cornmeal flour) by transgenic corn in what is supposed to be a GMO-free product used to make tamales and tortillas. According to a report posted to the Huffington Post , the transgenic corn (Enogen) may have been behind a mysterious incident in California involving bad masa ha...