Thank you for mentioning the nature of the legitimate alarming concerns re. GMOs.  One problem is that roundup ready seeds allow farms to be drenched in glyphosate, which removes the host and nectar plants for insects, particularly lepidoptera (moths and butterflies).  The reulting ahistoric insect declines threaten the very foundation of the food chain, and therefore, life on earth.

In Episode 166 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how a little-noted US-Mexico dispute on trade and agricultural policy has serious implications for the survival of the human race. Washington is preparing to file a complaint under terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico's decree banning imports of GMO corn, slated to take effect in January 2024. Concerns about the (unproven) health effects of consuming GMO foods miss the real critique—which is ecological, social and political. GMO seeds are explicitly designed as part of an "input package" intended to get farmers hooked on pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, and protect the "intellectual property" of private corporations. Agribusiness, which can afford the "input package," comes to dominate the market. Eased by so-called "free trade" polcities, agbiz forces the peasantry off the market and ultimately off the land—a process very well advanced in Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994, and which is intimately related to the explosion of the narco economy and mass migration. The pending decree in Mexico holds the promise of regenerating sustainable agrculture based on native seed stock. It is also a critical test case, as countries such as Kenya have recently repealed similar policies in light of the global food crisis. 

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/countervortex

Production by Chris Rywalt

Books discussed: Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction by Helen Anne Curry, University of California Press, 2022; War On the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America, by Bill Weinberg, Zed Books, 1991

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CounterVortex Podcast

Mexico and the struggle for the genetic commons

Support my work on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/countervortex

Mexico and the struggle for the genetic commons

CounterVortex

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Grace