Agriculture Execs Pressed to Suspend BT-Corn Commercialization

An international alliance of farmers and scientists warns that unless government freeze the experimentation and commercialization of Bt corn in the country, they will urge millions of farmers to junk President Macapagal-Arroyo in the coming May elections. The damage wrought on the farmers’ lives by GMOs is bad enough and worse if Macapagal-Arroyo is allowed to stay in office a minute longer.

By Rhoda Gueta 
Contributed to Bulatlat.com

The international farmers and scientists’ alliance Resistance and Solidarity Against Agrochemical TNCs (RESIST) believes that that there is enough evidence for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to immediately suspend the commercialization of Bt corn and freeze all field trials of other genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

In a press conference held on March 3 in Quezon City, Dr. Terje Traavik, a scientist from the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, presented a preliminary study showing that almost 50 farmers in Polomolok, South Cotabato have been exposed to the Bt toxin from the genetically-modified crops planted in the fields beside their homes.

In the same conference, a farmer-leader of the victims also testified that the community residents developed allergic symptoms such as stomach ache, vomiting, coughs, and cold
during the July planting season last year.

Rafael Mariano, chair of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and RESIST co-coordinator, said the DA's wait-and-see attitude poses a great risk to the health and livelihood of millions of farmers. From the start, government has been warned of such a scenario, he said. Now, he added, the railroading of the rights of farmers for the interest of transnational corporations has reaped its dire consequences.

Meanwhile, Dr. Romeo Quijano, president of Pesticide Action Network (PAN)- Philippines and a toxicologist from University of the Philippines’ College of Medicine, said: “The DA accepted Monsanto’s studies for GMO safety with no questions asked. Why can’t it accept this independent study that is ultimately more credible, being untainted with corporate self-interest?”

No monitoring system

Quijano blamed the DA, headed by Secretary Luis Lorenzo, for failing to institute a monitoring system on the effects of Bt corn commercialization, considering the resistance to the hazardous technology among even in the ranks of scientists around the world.

Mariano said that even if they fail to impress the DA the studies will nevertheless bolster the people’s continuing fight against GMOs as a product of imperialist globalization rammed down the throats of poor farmers and as a tool to wrest away from them the control of agriculture and food security.

Mariano, who is also one of the party-list nominees of Anakpawis, warned that if Lorenzo ignores this renewed call to stop GMOs, he and the whole Arroyo government will further expose themselves as lackeys of agrochemical TNCs, and an enemy of farmers who will exercise their voting rights in the coming May elections.

RESIST vows to intensify its campaign against GMOs in the national and grassroots level, from awareness and education programs to direct action like public protests and possibly uprooting of crops. The alliance is also set to release its own findings on the socio-economic impact of the one-year commercialization of Bt corn, such as additional expenses incurred by farmers and crop destruction all over the country. Bulatlat.com

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