Consumers and farmers in dozens of communities in Mexico, the US, Canada and other nations will dump corn and stage protests and press conferences on 10-17 April against genetically engineered corn. A broad continental coalition is spearheading the protests.
Consumer and farm groups throughout the continent are calling on governments, biotech corporations, food companies, and grain exporters to halt the dumping of US taxpayer subsidised genetically engineered corn in Mexico and other nations of corn biodiversity and to guarantee a fair price to corn producers, said the US-based Organic Consumers Association.
"Recent studies have found widespread genetic contamination of traditional varieties of corn in Mexico. Groups also demand that governments and leading food corporations such as Kraft remove all gene-altered corn from the market unless it is proven to be safe for human health and the environment and labelled," the association said in a statement.
"Recently, several hundred Americans have reported allergic reactions to the FDA after consuming foods suspected of containing genetically engineered corn. Two years ago an illegal and probably allergenic variety of gene-altered corn called StarLink contaminated the US corn supply and forced a massive recall of 300 brand name products."
Protests and press conferences will be held at the US Embassy in Mexico City, the grain port in Vera Cruz, Mexico, the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, and dozens of communities in corn growing areas of Latin America, as well as major grain exchanges in Winnipeg, Minneapolis, and Chicago, among other locations.
"These unprecedented continental wide protests mark the beginning of the end of the biotech industry dumping genetically engineered corn on consumers and the environment," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association.