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Mysterious 'Alien' Corn Invades Mexico Countryside
By PAV JORDAN
Reuters
CAPULALPAN, Mexico (Jan. 30) - In this one-telephone village in the hills
of Mexico's Oaxaca state, corn grows out of cracks in the sidewalks, along
roadsides and anywhere else it can find soil.
That may sound like a farmer's utopia, but for people in Capulalpan and a
host of other mountain settlements where corn is a staple of every family's
diet, it is more like an aberration of nature.
Local and foreign scientists have concluded the mysterious, ubiquitous corn
variety is genetically modified, and illegal.
The presence of the modified corn amid local corn varieties is not yet
alarming, but scientists warn it could usurp the hardier Oaxaca corn
quickly unless it is stopped soon.
Transgenic strains were found in 15 of 22 communities in these hills and in
3 to 10 percent of plants in the fields sampled.
''What's frightening is how fast it has spread,'' said Yolanda Lara,
spokeswoman for Oaxaca's non-governmental Rural Development Agency. ''The
government must put a stop to this.''
Mexicans, who see their country as the birthplace of the centuries-old
maize crop, are appalled by the discovery of genetically modified corn in
their most far-flung highlands.
And speculation that the modified corn reached their lands in government
trucks carrying subsidized kernels to community stores has fired that
outrage still further.
GOVERNMENT UNDER FIRE
Cultivating genetically modified corn has been prohibited in Mexico since
1998, although it is imported from the United States for human consumption.
Village elders for whom corn is a way of life in the Oaxaca highlands first
raised the alarm that a wild strain of corn was invading their native or
so-called ''Creole'' maize.
''This corn is going to waste away our creoles,'' said Lino Martinez, the
81-year-old farmer of a small corn plot in nearby La Trinidad, perched on a
steep mountainside with cornfields snaking up and down its slopes.
In La Trinidad, even the dentist's office has a corn patch for a backyard.
Biologists used DNA-testing on the ''wild'' corn and discovered that it was
genetically modified. The University of California at Berkeley confirmed
local findings in November, prompting demands that the Mexican government
halt imports of transgenic corn.
With the presence of alien corn confirmed, activists are now going after
its presumed source.
Residents in Capulalpan and a string of surrounding villages claim the corn
arrived on government trucks dispensing low-cost basic food items to people
in the area, where almost every house is flanked by a cornfield.
''Wherever those kernels fell, off the backs of the trucks, from bags
carried from the store, the corn would grow,'' said Olga Toro Maldonada,
39, who cultivates corn in her backyard to help feed her six children.
''It even grows out of the concrete.''
She claims the corn has been in the village for several years and is
readily available at the local government store. Locals say the modified
corn kernels are larger, differently colored and don't taste as sweet as
native varieties.
SUSCEPTIBLE TO PLAGUE
Maldonada began planting the kernels herself three years ago, curious to
see how they would grow. She says at least five other families in
Capulalpan followed suit.
The results were remarkable, at first.
''The first crop was marvelous, yielding two or three head of corn per
plant instead of one,'' said Maldonada as she walked through her tiny corn
patch, pointing out varieties of maize she said were Creole, genetically
modified and mixed.
It takes between four and five head of corn to create one kilogram of maize
for tortillas, the nation's main staple food, so the new corn strain at
first seemed to be a godsend.
But the windfall soured as Maldonada noticed that while the corn grew
anywhere and with very little water, it was highly susceptible to plague
once ripe.
She only stopped harvesting the maize after being told it was genetically
modified and still an unknown quantity in the science world, where the
impact of transgenics on the environment is unclear.
Scientists and environmentalists say they are concerned the transgenic
maize could usurp the Creole variety, which has become largely resistant to
local plagues and diseases.
Officials at the government's basic foods distribution program, Diconsa,
which sells subsidized corn to 23,000 stores nationwide, deny claims they
distribute the corn and say their maize is grown locally or bought from
local distributors.
Diconsa director general Fernando Lopez Toledo told Reuters in a telephone
interview that imported corns are only bought when national production does
not suffice.
Sources in Mexico could not identify U.S. companies exporting the corn,
which is transported in bulk and
