Joint Statement on the Mexican GM Maize Scandal

A huge controversy has erupted over evidence that the Mesoamerican
Center of Genetic Diversity is contaminated with genetically modified
(GM) maize material.  Two respected scientists are under global
attack and the peer-review process of a major scientific publication
is being threatened.  There is infighting at the Mexican
ministries of environment and agriculture, and intergovernmental
organizations and international scientific institutes are squabbling
over methodologies rather than carrying out their mandates.

Background:

It all began with an article in
Nature last September reporting on the findings of Mexico's
Ministry of the Environment that extensive GM maize contamination had
been found in farmers' varieties in two states.  In November, a
peer-reviewed article, also in Nature, by Dr. Ignacio Chapela
and graduate student David Quist at the Berkeley campus of the
University of California, offered scientific evidence of the Mexican
contamination.  A subsequent story in Nature Biotechnology

reported that the Berkeley scientists had unconfirmed preliminary
indications that GM pollution may have seeped into the world's most
important maize gene bank.   On January 23rd, at a workshop
hosted by civil society organizations in Mexico, the country's
environment ministry presented a study that revealed that GM
contamination of farmers' varieties of maize had been found at
contamination rates of up to 35% in remote villages in Oaxaca and
Puebla.   The findings were jointly prepared by the Ministry
of the Environment and Natural Resources, the National  Institute
of Ecology and the National Commission on 
Biodiversity.

Pro-industry and pro-GM academics went ballistic.  News that a
Center of Genetic Diversity had been polluted with
GM traits could crush industry hopes that the European Union would end
its de facto GM moratorium in March.  Industry is also concerned
that the April meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity would
quash global labeling pressures and Mexico's specific calls for
compensatory mechanisms for biotech accidents.

Civil Society and CIMMYT Exchange: 

On February
6th, many of the leading Farmers' and other Civil Society
Organizations attending the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Brazil
joined together to write to Jacques Diouf, the Director-General of the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Ian Johnson, the World
Bank Vice-President who chairs the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to ask them to call for a moratorium on
the shipment of GM seed or grain into their Centers of Genetic
Diversity.  The letters were in part prompted by telephone and
e-mail discussions with Dr. Tim Reeves, the Director-General of the
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT - one of the
16 CGIAR "Green Revolution" centers).   Although
Reeves cautioned that the methodology supporting the contamination
studies was under attack - and that three rounds of investigation at
CIMMYT had revealed no contamination of their maize gene bank, he did
agree that there was GM contamination in Mexico and that it would be
only a matter of time before contamination reached the gene banks. 
Reeves also volunteered that his comments could be quoted.  Since
then, the CIMMYT director has expressed his regret that CSOs did not
wait for clarification on the issues of methodology before writing to
FAO and CGIAR, but he has stood by the two main points:  there is
contamination in a Center of Genetic Diversity, and it is only a
matter of time before that contamination reaches into the gene bank -
if it hasn't already occurred.

Industry's strategy: 

CIMMYT could hardly be
described as anti-GM.  It has the premiere biotech programme
within the CGIAR. Why then are some scientists and institutions
attacking the findings of the Government of Mexico and the Berkeley
scientists'  It would seem to be a project doomed to failure
since regardless of the methodologies involved - no serious
scientist can really dispute the contamination'  Three reasons
make short-term gain for long-term problems a reasonable strategy for
supporters of industry:

1. Damage control in Europe and Brazil:
The
world's biggest non-GM consumer of agricultural imports is still
tottering uncertainly on the issue of genetic modification.  The
more anti-GM activists can be attacked or discredited
the better industry's chances will be to win an end to the de
facto moratorium when EU Heads of State gather in Barcelona March
15-16.  Meanwhile, Brazil - the world's largest non-GM exporter -
has been making loud pro-GM noises.  Concerns about environmental damage in Mesoamerica
readily translate into Brazilian alarm about damage to the
Amazon.   As with Europe, the Mexican scandal is bad news
for biotech in Brazil.

2. Biosafety Protocol containment:
When the
world's environmental ministries gather in The Hague (April 8-26),
Terminator technology and the Biosafety Protocol are high on the
agenda.  The Protocol emphasizes the special role of Centers of
Origin and Centers of Genetic Diversity.  Unless they can keep
doubts circulating as to whether or not Mesoamerica is contaminated,
there could be an irresistible pressure for a moratorium and for
industry to foot the bill for clean up.

3. Academic intimidation:
The Biotech industry has
been hurt by the scientific reports of respected academics such as Dr.
Arpad Pusztai and now Ignacio Chapela and David Quist (authors of the
Berkeley study). Pusztai (formerly employed at the Rowett Institute in
Edinburgh, UK) published a study revealing that GM potatoes fed to lab
rats interfered with their growth, organ development, and immune
systems.)   They got Pusztai temporarily muzzled and fired,
and they want to do the same to Chapela and Quist - as a warning to
any other academics who break ranks over GM research. 
Pro-industry academics are engaging in a highly unethical mud-slinging
campaign against the Berkeley researchers.

Given the stakes, the biotech industry's desperate attempts to cloud
and confuse the scandal is not surprising.  If EU Heads of State
drop their moratorium in March and the Biodiversity Convention skates
clear in April without demands for contamination compensation, then
whatever bad news comes down in May is manageable.

CIMMYT's role: 

What is harder to understand is
the silence of CIMMYT and the entire CGIAR.  Hiding behind a
debate they themselves understand to be irrelevant on methodologies of
GM detection, the Center that sees itself mandated to conserve maize
genetic diversity has failed to state firmly and publicly what they
believe to be the truth - that there is contamination in the field and
there will be (or is already) contamination in gene banks. 
Without taking sides or even entering into the methodologies debate,
CIMMYT must do what its mandate demands - state the reality as they
believe it to be and announce the steps they are taking - and think
others should take - to conserve diversity and safeguard farmers. 
Anything less is corporate complicity and totally
unacceptable.   

We call upon CIMMYT to:

• Publicly acknowledge that GM maize contamination has taken place in Mesoamerica;
• Confirm that under present
  circumstances the operational assumption has to be that GM maize contamination in gene banks is inevitable;

We call upon FAO to:

• Ensure that the Code of Conduct on Biotechnology which is currently under development, incorporate
  mechanisms to control the diffusion of GM materials to vulnerable
  regions and to guarantee that the burden of ecosystem restoration and
  farmer and national compensation rests with those who
  pollute.

We call upon CGIAR and FAO together to:

• Review the current FAO-CGIAR Trust
  Agreement to ensure that the integrity of germplasm held in Trust is
  protected and that there are no intellectual property claims
  pertaining to any of the germplasm;  

• Recommend steps to safeguard local
  farmers' varieties and gene banks.  

• Propose an immediate moratorium on
  the shipment of GM seed or grain in countries or regions that form
  part of the Centre of Origin or Centre of Genetic Diversity for the
  species.

We call upon Academia and the Private Industry to:

• Renounce immediately the use of
  intimidatory tactics to silence potentially 'dissident'
  scientists. We call upon the scientific community to publicly support
  the academic freedom of scientists whose studies conflict with the
  interests of industry and to censor those academics and institutions
  that slander the competence or integrity of those who publish
  peer-reviewed studies. 

We request that the 6th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity meeting in The Hague, Netherlands April 8-26
place the issue of the GM contamination of Centres of Origin or of
Genetic Diversity on its agenda for urgent debate and that the World
Food Summit Five Years Later, taking place in Rome from June 6-13 also
place this issue on its agenda.

Signatories to this statement include: