This is what Pat Mooney, Executive Director at the ETC Group said yesterday in Guadalajara, at the activities parallel to the Conference on Agriculture Biotechnologies in Developing Countries.

Mooney stated that over the last few months, 1500 social organizations around the world wrote to the FAO to warn on the “crime against humanity” suffered by Mexico with GM maize crops, and the answer of the FAO was that they couldn´t intervene in a “national issue”.

“And then the FAO comes to Mexico, comes to Guadalajara and has a conference on biotechnology on crops”, the activist regretted. In addition, the FAO prevented Mexican organizations, such as the National Union of Regional Peasant Organizations, to participate.

Mooney also talked about how world crises are an opportunity for big industries, for Public-Private Partnership and an opportunity for transnational corporations to control the sector.

“Over the last 35 years, since the last food crisis, we´ve gone from about 7000 different seed companies in the world, providing seeds to farmers, down to four companies than control more than half of the world seed market”, Mooney said.
The top ten companies control two thirds of the global commercial seed market and the most important chemical companies went from 65 to 9, which today control 90 per cent of the global pesticides market. “And in the same way, big companies have taken control of the veterinary medicine market, taken control of livestock genetics”, he added.

“Have you noticed how successful they have been? In 1996 there were 400 million hungry people. Last year, during the last food summit, there were a billion hungry people. They have been very successful.”, Mooney said ironically.
Mooney believes that if Mexican farmers lose the fight in defense of maize, the consequences would be fatal. “If you lose this fight in the centre of diversity of maize, then we will lose the centres of diversity around the world. You are not just fighting in defense of maize, you are not just fighting Monsanto, you are fighting the new “biomasters”. We all depend on you”, he concluded.