As I looked into the issue of the Zapatista Corn, the more I am reminded of the importance that agriculture and food play in forming culture. It’s something that I was not really conscious of before, but when I really think about it it seems that so much of what we associate with culture is around daily interactions and celebrations which tend to revolve around food. So it was quite an awakening for me to read about how certain nations and indigenous cultures have to fight and protest to preserve such integral parts of their culture.
This is not the first I had read about the issues that revolve around modern agriculture, having studied the rise of high fructose corn syrup in an economics course I could draw connections with the story of the Zapatistas. The effect on the mass production of corn for corn syrup as a cheaper alternative to sugar has had detrimental effects on the health of Americans on a grand scale, and once can see how such changes to one’s diet can trickle into the cultural realm.
So it makes perfect sense to me that the people of Mexico would be alarmed about the introduction of GMO corn into their crops, not to mention the issue of large American firms such as Monsanto using Mexican land for their production. We can see how the introduction of a new kind of corn would be a threat to agriculture and sustenance which is such a big part of the Mexican culture.
The article brought to my attention the concept of a Biocultural Innovation, something that I was not aware of. In particular, activists using reaching out to farmers about techniques such as genetic testing, seed banking, and the use of global distribution to strengthen the movement against GMO corn.
Can we think of any other similar movements against neoliberal policies that have gained traction in the region and how were their techniques similar or different to that of the Zapatistas?
I think you are the only person who wrote about the Zapatista corn haha but I am glad you did.
The invasion of GMO corn is definitely one of the most significant neoliberal policies when it comes to biocultural preservation and resistance in Mexico. Unrelated to food directly, oil is also a point of contention in the more densely Indigenous-populated areas of Mexico such as Puebla and Chiapas. The imposition of pipelines by the current president AMLO threatens the livelihoods of these people and the biodiversity supported by the fertile lands that surround them. The Indigenous communities in this region, the Nahua, Totonaca, Otomí and Tepehua peoples, have openly opposed Trans Canada Energy’s construction of pipelines (7 in total) on their land through the internet, street art, and the media but to no avail.
Hi!
Great Post 🙂
Latin America has definitely seen its fair share of neoliberalism over the decades. The 1970s and 80s saw a wave of privatization in the region and the ideals of neoliberalism still hold power. Yet, in reaction to these ideals, Latin America saw the “pink tide” emerge. I think then, this phase and the policies it brought were all resistance to neoliberalism.
Hi!
I found your post really interesting, and both the post and this reading relate a lot to topics that I learned about in LAST 303 which I took last semester. We spent the whole term talking about food systems of different Indigenous communities throughout Latin America and how the peoples and their food systems have been affected by colonialism and neoliberalism. I especially liked what you said about food being such an integral part of culture, and I definitely found that to be true throughout LAST 303, because while we were focusing on food ways and cooking traditions, we learned so much about the people and the culture. One of the biggest things that we talked about consistently through the course was the idea of subsistence farming, which is practiced by several Indigenous groups throughout Latin America, and is a tradition greatly threatened by the possibility of big foreign companies coming in and using all the land for export farming.