Haitian Peasants vs. Monsanto
June 22 2010 - 10:49 PM
On June 4th 10,000 Haitian peasants burned corn donated by Monsanto. Ana Jones at the Huffington Post has an article about it. They cite Farmer Leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay first hand. Right or wrong, here are his reasons why they chose to do this.
- Hybrid seeds are a poison gift. They don't reproduce,
and therefore cannot be shared among a community. Haiti does not yet
view seeds as a commodity like the US does. These hybrid seeds threaten
the cultural fabric in Haiti because they break the cycle of food
sharing. - Jean-Baptiste believes that Monsanto has taken
the opportunity of the recent earthquake in Haiti to intentionally
introduce the seeds and destroy Haitian agriculture, creating a
dependency on Monsanto each season for new seeds. - If the
Haitian government accepts Monsanto's seeds, rather than trying to
build a system of food sovereignty, the Haitian farmer will become a
day laborer, working for industrial farms. This would completely
transform the economy to an industrial system instead of working to
support farmers through a local economic system.
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