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Silenced voices, vital arguments: smallholder farmers in the Mexican GM maize controversy

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Abstract

Smallholder producers are the collective most likely to be affected by the introduction of GMOs globally, yet the least included in public debates and consultation about the development, implementation or regulation of this agricultural biotechnology. Why are the voices and arguments of smallholder farmers being excluded from national and international GM debates and regulation? In this article, we identify barriers which prevent smallholder farmers in Mexico from having a voice in public political, economic, scientific and social fori regarding the GM maize controversy. Through the analysis of empirical data from a case study in Mexico, we identify political, institutional, economic and ontological reasons that lie behind that exclusion. We conclude with an appraisal of smallholder farmers’ perspectives on GM maize and their visions of Mexico’s rural future, within which they demand a meaningful and rightful space.

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Notes

  1. This principle states that “business should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges” (UN 2009).

  2. Although the term “peasant” has a complex and controversial history (see, for instance, Kearney 1996 or Gledhill 1985), and the word campesino also has multiple significations and connotations in Spanish, I have chosen to use it in this article, as it was a term of self-reference as well as a political statement of positioning used by both indigenous and non-indigenous smallholder farmers in the Pátzcuaro Lake region.

  3. The milpa is the term used to designate both a plot of land and the specific system of cultivation which takes place in that land. This system of pre-Hispanic origin consists in combining up to 60 different plants, including maize, beans, squash, chilli, and tomato, in the same small plot (Toledo et al. 2013), in order to produce enough food to fulfil the nutritional needs of the kin group, whilst conserving the soil properties from season to season.

  4. According to this vision, not all science is equally “sound’ or “scientific” when it comes to GM research (see Wynne 2003, 2005).

  5. The anti-GM coalition in Mexico is not an officially established group with a unified discourse, but a loose and dynamic coalition of different groups and associations. Each of these groups has its own rationale and remit but they assemble ad hoc, usually to respond to movements and announcements from the government, the regulatory bodies, or the seed companies, or to stage campaigns in defence of native maize. Groups that appear prominently in this coalition include: environmental NGOs (Semillas de Vida, GEA); human rights NGOs (some of them religious such as CENAMI or the Jesuit Social Division); consumers’ associations (La Ruta Natural); campesino organisations (UNORCA, La Via Campesina); scientific associations (Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad); and also high profile individuals such as the Oaxaca painter Francisco Toledo. For more information please see Carro-Ripalda et al. (2014).

  6. Wild relative of maize, and its direct ancestor, from where present-day native varieties were created by domestication (Toledo et al. 2013, p. 72).

  7. Here I use a broad understanding of the process of “subjectification” as explained by Foucault (1981, 1985a, b), meaning the constitution of subjects (self-aware and capable of action) by productive technologies of power. Thus de-subjectification in this context refers to the contrary process: to the negation of farmers’ full subject status, and thus of their capacity for action and self-awareness.

  8. Indigenismo is a post-revolutionary philosophy which proposes the “study and incorporation of indigenous people and culture into national society, culture and identity” (Saldívar 2011: 68). First coined by Gamio (1992 [1916]), indigenismo has been officially implemented as policy and practice through different indigenist institutions (INI and CDI) since 1948.

  9. Although, as Bühler (2012: 12) has noted, the outcomes of “participation and consensus-building activities” are not always necessarily legitimate.

  10. As we learned through our research, criollo maize and maize agriculture act as fluid dynamics which articulate relations, practices and understandings and vertebrate life in smallholder communities, and particularly in indigenous ones (which have a slightly different political organisation and land property customary laws). We do not have the space here to develop those points, but we will do so in forthcoming publications.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the financial assistance provided by a John Templeton Foundation grant entitled, “Understanding the social, cultural and religious factors that shape the acceptance, use and resistance to GM crops: a comparative approach.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson Building, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

    Susana Carro-Ripalda

  2. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No. 8701, Col. Ex-Hacienda de San José de La Huerta, C.P. 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico

    Marta Astier

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Correspondence to Susana Carro-Ripalda.

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Carro-Ripalda, S., Astier, M. Silenced voices, vital arguments: smallholder farmers in the Mexican GM maize controversy. Agric Hum Values 31, 655–663 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9533-3

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