Upstart Corn Activists in Mexico Just Beat GMO Goliath Bayer-Monsanto

[Jilly_in_VA]

In a real-life David versus Goliath moment, a small group of Mexican activists just won a major battle in a longstanding legal dispute with big farming monolith Bayer-Monsanto and other chemical and seed companies.

Mexico's Supreme Court just rejected appeals by companies including Bayer-Monsanto, Synganta, and Corteva, and voted to ratify an injunction that restricts the cultivation of genetically modified corn. The injunction was submitted in 2013 by a small group of activists and has effectively stopped Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer in 2018, and other companies from turning Mexico's massive and culturally important corn industry into genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for 8 years.

“It's a remarkable story,” Timothy Wise, a senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy and author of the book Eating Tomorrow which details the case, told VICE World News.

“How are these pesky, little, underfunded groups with their inexperienced legal teams taking on these freaking companies?”

The legal fight began in 2013 when a group called Demanda Colectiva en Defensa del Maíz Nativo, or the Collective Lawsuit in Defense of Native Corn in English, petitioned the Mexican government to halt the use of genetically modified corn because the country's constitution guarantees the right to a clean environment. The coalition of farmer, consumer, and environmental groups that makes up the collective argued that genetically modified corn causes cross-pollination and endangers native corn varieties, which is a staple of Mexican culture, cuisine, and its environment.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbzv4/mexico-rejected-appeals-for-gmo-corn-bayer-monsanto