Consumer and environmental groups in North America last Wednesday launched a week of protests against what they call contamination of Mexico's traditional corn by genetically engineered varieties.
From the US Embassy in Mexico City to grain commodities exchanges in Chicago and Winnipeg, demonstrations have been planned with the hope of calling attention to a controversial scientific study that reported Mexican native corn had been contaminated by genetically engineered DNA.
The scientific study, published five months ago in the journal Nature , had alarmed environmentalists because the native corn varieties had been collected from a region in Mexico considered to be the world's centre of corn diversity.
The study found traces of the cauliflower mosaic virus widely used to drive the activity of newly inserted genes as well as other samples of genetically modified DNA in ears of corn from two locations around Oaxaca.
Although the source of contamination of native Mexico corn varieties was unknown, activists believed it resulted from corn imports from the United States. About 40 percent of corn planted in the United States is genetically modified.
"The genetic contamination of Mexican native corn varieties threatens not only the genetic integrity of corn, one of the world's most important basic crops, but the food security for millions in the Americas," a coalition of organisations, including the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), Global Exchange, and Genetically Engineered Food Alert, said in a statement.
Technical faults
On April 4, however, Nature made the unusual move of announcing that it should not have published the study. While the conclusion that corn had been contaminated remained unchallenged, the magazine criticised the quality of the study and its suggestion that genetically engineered DNA might behave in unpredictable ways.
The lead author of one critique, Matthew Metz, a scientist at the University of Washington, called the study a "testament to technical incompetence" and "mysticism masquerading as science".
The authors of the study, Ignacio Chapela, a microbial ecologist at the University of California, and one of his graduate assistants, David Quist, remained confident in their findings, although they acknowledged a few technical faults.
In an effort to further prove their conclusion, Chapela and Quist provided new data and pointed out that the Mexican government conducted similar studies in two states that corroborated their data.
"We did the monitoring, we found the transgenes that were not supposed to be there, and then we got viciously attacked by people who didn't like our answers," said Chapela.
Genetically modified corn has not been approved for planting in Mexico but corn that has been altered to produce the insecticide Bt is imported for use in food.
Activists hoped the latest demonstrations would eventually lead to greater protection of traditional corn varieties from contamination by modified genes. Organisers said they expected individual events to draw between dozens and thousands of protesters.
"These unprecedented continent-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 OCA, an advocacy group based in the US state of Minnesota.
Contamination
Opponents of biotechnology pointed to other examples of how genetically altered food have contaminated traditional crops and food supplies.
Two years ago, a variety of altered corn known as StarLink, which had only been approved for animal consumption for fear of allergic reactions in humans, contaminated the US corn supply and forced a massive recall of 300 popular brand name corn products.
Contamination of traditional crops has also been found in other countries. Hundreds of hectares of genetically modified cotton had been detected in India, although it had not been approved for use there at the time. And in Canada, organic farmers who said their canola crop had been tainted with genetically modified canola blowing in from neighbouring fields filed a class action suit.
Arguing that genetically modified crops and food have not been proven to be safe, activists demanded that governments and leading food corporations remove all gene-altered corn products from the market. Genetically Engineered Food Alert, a coalition of environmental and consumer groups, has planned another round of protests for April 17-22 against Kraft Foods Inc, a prominent food company.
The coalition said it commissioned an independent lab to examine a range of Kraft products, and that several including Boca Burgers, Post Blueberry Morning cereal, and Stove Top Stuffing were found to contain genetically engineered corn and soy.
"There is a strong consensus globally among medical, scientific and government experts that biotech crops are safe. If we believed these ingredients posed any risk, you can be sure they wouldn't be in our products," Kraft spokesperson Michael Mudd said in February, when the company first confronted the coalition's charges.
Matt Rand, speaking for coalition member the National Environmental Trust, said: "This is a grass-roots effort to inform the public that they are consuming genetically engineered foods and to also demand that Kraft remove these ingredients."
