Against the grain: knowledge alliances and resistance to agricultural biotechnology in Guatemala

Abstract

Critical political economy views the global expansion of transgenic agriculture as emblematic of a new phase of transnational capital accumulation. This study seeks to understand resistance to agricultural biotechnology in Guatemala. There, despite backing from US-based Monsanto and a weakened Mayan indigenous movement, transgenic crop cultivation remains illegal. I argue that opposition to transgenic maize, by raising concerns over risks to biodiversity and farmer livelihoods, is leading to a re-articulation of Mayan movements and their increasing identification with environmental and campesino (or peasant) struggles. These "knowledge alliances" are shaping national debates over the technology and hindering the advancement of the neoliberal food regime.RÉ SUMÉ La critique de l'économie politique voit l'expansion globale de l'agriculture transgénique comme un processes emblématique d'une nouvelle phase de l'accumulation transnationale du capital. Cette étude essaie de comprendre la résistance à la biotechnologie agriculturelle au Guatemala. Dans le pays, malgré l'appui américain de Monsanto et un mouvement indigène faible, la culture transgénique demeure illégale. L'auteur argumente que l'opposition à la culture transgénique, qui remet en question les risques apportés à la biodiversité et au bien-être des fermiers, mène à une renaissance du mouvement des Maya et leur idenficiation aux luttes environmentales et paysannes. Ces alliances de connaissance entre ces groupes différents influencent largement le débat national concernant la biotechnologie et l'opposition contre le regime agroalimentaire neoliberal.

Emerging, and old, dilemmas for food security in Latin America

“…That is why controversies on the subject of transgenics in Latin America are focused on the impact of biotechnology on biodiversity in the regions (Peschard, ). This can be observed in the case of Guatemala, where the biodiversity of maize has been maintained due to the fact that the original population represents 60% of the population, and 90% of this population is in rural areas (Klepek, ), although in other regions in Latin America, the expansion of biotechnology corporations in Brazil, Argentina, and India are responsible for 80% of crops with this type of technology (Gras & Hernández, ). The transit of a healthy and diversified diet was the main purpose in the agendas on food security, but consumption trends show the contrary.…”

Mayan imaginaries of democracy: Interactive sovereignties and political affect in postrevolutionary Guatemala

“…If they mention it at all, agronomists attribute input cost inflation to impersonal market forces of supply and demand. In this perspective, population growth caused land shortages that created food security problems, requiring the introduction of new technologies, whose long-term effects were negative (Carey 2009;Klepek 2012). These processes require a shift to organic production that the farmers, for whatever reason (usually assumed to be cultural), refuse to make.…”

“…The association's explanation for the subsistence crisis sounded quite similar to the development experts' perspective. Leftist organizations oppose genetically modified maize-introduced by CAFTA-as threats to food security (Klepek 2012). In a 2003 press release, anti-free-trade activists critiqued MOSCAMED for spraying toxins as part of a laundry list of reasons why CAFTA and Plan Puebla Panama-a regional development master plan to integrate Mesoamerica into global markets-would harm local inhabitants.…”

“…Dissatisfaction with the deteriorating postcolonial state of affairs festers among Mayan youth who have grown up exposed to idealistic discourses of democracy, human rights, and universal religious brotherhood, positive images of Mayanness, and life in the United States. Their frustration and collective power animate national teachers' strikes, the anti-mining movement, and recent protests against austerity, corruption, state violence and attempts to legalize transgenic maize (Klepek 2012; the latter are no doubt fueled by the MOSCAMED rumors). New forms of agitation may reflect, and provoke, changes in political affect and a shifting of the political horizon beyond the thinly blunted oppression of neoliberal democracy.…”

Popular Demobilization, Agribusiness Mobilization, and the Agrarian Boom in Post-Neoliberal Argentina

“…Food regime scholars, in short, converge in seeing social movements and contentious mobilization as a tool of subordinated actors to challenge neoliberalism. Accordingly, research has overwhehningly emphasized resistance to agricultural biotechnology (Fitting 2011;Heller 2013;Klepek 2012;Newell 2008;Pechlaner 2012;Schurman and Munro 2010;Scoones 2008).…”