EXCERPTS

....no other third world country must follow the Argentine path.

Argentina could feed itself even in the worst periods of our history. We produced varied, cheap and healthy food for our own population...

But since the no-tillage/GM crop/pesticide package agro-export model was forced on us, through the neoliberal government of Carlos Menem during the 90's ... the consequences were catastrophical.

Argentina does not know how to get free from the model. We have had GM agriculture since the 90's and now the Argentinian people are starving for the first time in our history.

So why does the FAO report use Argentina as a good
example for biotek. Well. Biotek agri-industry did well in Argentina, for sure. Those who did not do too well were the people. But GMOs are not for the people, so who cares about these consequenses?

Well, we care, so we should stop this from happening in Africa, Asia and other Latin American countries. They do not have the right to go on starving more people, just to make a quick profit.

Once the industry is there, they become a cancer.
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Fwd: [agri-trade]
Argentina approves Monsanto's GM corn
Date: Friday 16 July 2004 11:21
From: lilian joensen <[email protected]>

You remember, when Monsanto "threatened" to leave
Argentina if our RR soya producers were not forced to pay RR soya royalties. Well, this bullying was to force the RR corn.

http://www.ghorganics.com/Monsanto%20in%20Argentina%20Bye%20bye%20forever.htm

http://www.google.dk/search?q=cache:n8Rz1dK1OIEJ:www.ramshorn.bc.ca/archive20
04/218.html+rulli+For+years+Monsanto+looked+away,+indifferent,+when+the+North+&hl=da&ie=UTF-8

One of the reasons that stopped RR maize to be allowed for commercial growth in Argentina this last two years, was that the EU did not allow to import it.

But since Monsanto and the AAPRESID "No tillage producers Association in Argentina" started to push the government, the arguement they used was that if we cannot expoert it to Europe, we can give it to our own animals in Argentina. They did not say Africa, but for sure they are going to try to sell it there. So you should be aware and ready to stop this.

The other argument was that conventional and Bt maize could not be grown together with RR soya, since goyphosate killed the maize. So the great idea was to grow RR maize. In this way we could not speak of RR soya monoculture. We could go back to our traditional rotation.

Anyway, we have soya/maize rotation with RR gene monoculture.

As I always ask, no other third world country must follow the Argentine path. Argentina could feed itself even in the worse periods of our history. We produced varied, cheap and healthy food for our own population with almost no pesticided and no fertilizers (due to traditional crop/crop-crop/cattle rotation. But since the no-tillage/GMcrop/pesticide package agroexport model was forced to us, through the neoliberal government of Carlos Menem during the 90's, where GMOs were the way to achive privitization of agriculture.

The consequences were catastrophical. Argentina does not know how to get free from the model. We got GM agriculture since the 90's and now the Argentinean people are starving for the first time in our history.

During the bad 70's only 5% of the Argentine population were under the poverty line. During the 80's poverty grew to 12%. Today 56% of our population is under the poverty line and hunger is an everyday experience for Argentinean families for the first time of our history.

Meanwhile, Argentina grows over 16 million [hetares] of GM crops, and we are the biotek industry and facilities are as "advanced" as any in the US or Europe. We have all the biotek companies experimenting all you can imagine in our country.

Biotek did not help us even to keep the standard we had before it overtook our economy. But while biotek advanced in the country, hunger also took over.

So why does the FAO report use Argentina as a good
example for biotek. Well. Biotek agriindustry did well in Argentina, for sure. Those who did not do too well were the people. But GMOs are not for the people, so who cares [about] these consequenses?

Well, we care, so we should stop this to happen in
Africa, Asia and other Latin American countries. They do not have the right to go on starving more people, just to make quick profit.

Once the industry is there, they became a cancer.

Best regards and better luck than ours

Lilian (GRR, Argentina)

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