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Importing Corn, Exporting Labor: The Neoliberal Corn Regime, GMOs, and the Erosion of Mexican Biodiversity

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  • Elizabeth Fitting

Abstract

When genetically modified (GM) imported corn was found growing in Oaxaca and the Tehuacán Valley of Puebla, Mexico (2000–2002), it intensified the debate between activists, academics, and government officials about the effects of trade liberalization on Mexican corn farmers and maize biodiversity. In order to understand the challenges faced by corn farmers and in situ diversity, it is important to contextualize GM corn within the recent neoliberal corn regime and its regional manifestations. This essay offers a case study of how indigenous corn farmers from the southern Tehuacán Valley have adapted to such neoliberal reforms and economic crisis by combining local corn production with US-bound labor migration. Copyright Springer 2006

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  • Elizabeth Fitting, 2006. "Importing Corn, Exporting Labor: The Neoliberal Corn Regime, GMOs, and the Erosion of Mexican Biodiversity," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(1), pages 15-26, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:23:y:2006:i:1:p:15-26
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-004-5862-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Flores, Regina & Ney, Luke & Gallagher, Kevin P. & Wise, Timothy A. & Ackerman, Frank, 2003. "Free Trade, Corn, and the Environment: Environmental Impacts of US - Mexico Corn Trade Under NAFTA," Working Papers 15604, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    2. Gomez, Jose Alfonso Aguirre & Bellon, Mauricio R. & Smale, Melinda, 1998. "A Regional Analysis of Maize Biological Diversity in Southeastern Guanajuato, Mexico," Economics Working Papers 7671, CIMMYT: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
    3. Frank Ackerman & Timothy A. Wise & Kevin P. Gallagher & Luke Ney & Regina Flores, "undated". "Free Trade, Corn, and the Environment: Environmental Impacts of US – Mexico Corn Trade Under NAFTA," GDAE Working Papers 03-06, GDAE, Tufts University.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mercado, Geovana & Nico Hjortsø, Carsten, 2023. "Explaining the development policy implementation gap: A case of a failed food sovereignty policy in Bolivia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Galeana-Pizaña, J. Mauricio & Couturier, Stéphane & Figueroa, Daniela & Jiménez, Aldo Daniel, 2021. "Is rural food security primarily associated with smallholder agriculture or with commercial agriculture?: An approach to the case of Mexico using structural equation modeling," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    3. Susana Carro-Ripalda & Marta Astier, 2014. "Silenced voices, vital arguments: smallholder farmers in the Mexican GM maize controversy," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(4), pages 655-663, December.
    4. Quetzalcóatl Orozco-Ramírez & Marta Astier & Sara Barrasa, 2017. "Agricultural Land Use Change after NAFTA in Central West Mexico," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-14, October.
    5. S. Ryan Isakson, 2007. "Uprooting Diversity? Peasant Farmers’ Market Engagements and the on-Farm Conservation of Crop Genetic Resources in the Guatemalan Highlands," Working Papers wp122, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    6. Clare Gupta, 2018. "Contested fields: an analysis of anti-GMO politics on Hawai’i Island," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 181-192, March.
    7. Rebecka Daye, 2020. "Competing food sovereignties: GMO-free activism, democracy and state preemptive laws in Southern Oregon," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 1013-1025, December.
    8. Alder Keleman, 2010. "Institutional support and in situ conservation in Mexico: biases against small-scale maize farmers in post-NAFTA agricultural policy," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(1), pages 13-28, March.
    9. Francisco Martinez-Gomez & Gilberto Aboites-Manrique & Douglas Constance, 2013. "Neoliberal restructuring, neoregulation, and the Mexican poultry industry," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(4), pages 495-510, December.
    10. Klara Fischer & Elisabeth Ekener-Petersen & Lotta Rydhmer & Karin Edvardsson Björnberg, 2015. "Social Impacts of GM Crops in Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-23, July.
    11. Soleri, Daniela & Cleveland, David A. & Glasgow, Garrett & Sweeney, Stuart H. & Cuevas, Flavio Aragón & Fuentes, Mario R. & Ríos L., Humberto, 2008. "Testing assumptions underlying economic research on transgenic food crops for Third World farmers: Evidence from Cuba, Guatemala and Mexico," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 667-682, November.
    12. Abby Kinchy, 2010. "Anti-genetic engineering activism and scientized politics in the case of “contaminated” Mexican maize," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(4), pages 505-517, December.
    13. Robert Falkner & Aarti Gupta, 2009. "The limits of regulatory convergence: globalization and GMO politics in the south," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 113-133, May.

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