by Judy Baehr
In rural areas of Mexico, many small farmers cannot afford to buy seed. And even if they can afford it, much of the seed sold at local stores may be left over from previous years, or not stored properly, so that it has poor germination rates. (For those of you who have not grown plants from seed, this means the seed won't sprout and grow!) There's no money-back guarantee on such seed purchases, so the farmer who buys it risks a lost crop season and potential financial disaster.
The cost and viability of seeds in Mexico is a major reason why the majority of small farmers in Mexico harvest and save their own seed.
Open pollinated seeds are the only ones that will breed true from seed gathered from last year's crops, whose seed has been pollinated with wind-blown or bee-carried pollen. In other words, you can save the seed from this year's crop and plant it next year and it will give you the same plant, same vegetable, year after year forever. These are the traditional "heritage" varieties which have been grown and selected for their desirable traits for millennia. They grow well without high input of fertilizer, water and pesticides because they have been selected by farmers who grew crops organically, often under adverse conditions. These seeds are dynamic; that is, they mutate and adapt to the local ecosystem, as opposed to modern hybrids, which are static. ("Organic" seed may or may not be hybrid—"organic" means that it was grown without artificial fertilizers or pesticides.)
Hybrid seeds, on the other hand, are the first generation offspring of two distant and distinct parental lines of the same species. Seeds taken from a hybrid may either be sterile or, more commonly, will fail to breed true, not incorporating and expressing the desired traits of the parents. You can't predict what you will get from seed from a hybrid, or if it will be viable at all. Many small farmers in Mexico find that out the hard way.
Hybrid seed is also known as "high response" seed, because it has been bred with an emphasis on high yield at the expense of hardiness and resistance to diseases and pests. Hybrid seed requires lots of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and water to achieve high yields. Reliance on these seeds forces the use of chemicals and irrigation systems, and further reduces the ability of small farmers to make a profit from their crops. In addition, the substitution of chemical fertilizers for organic methods such as composting, crop rotation and manuring creates lifeless dusty soils prone to soil erosion.
Recently, the seed situation in Mexico has gotten worse. Much worse. Corn, the #1 crop in Mexico, as well as in many other countries, cross-pollinates easily because corn pollen blows on the wind from one field to another. The result is that farmers face contamination with hybrid seed, resulting in an inability to save native varieties of seed corn, and the ultimate loss of those varieties. This was already a risk in areas where hybrid seed is used. With the introduction of genetically modified ("GM") corn varieties, the risk that native varieties would be contaminated became a critical issue. Last September the Mexican environmental ministry (INE) announced that cornfields in Puebla and Oaxaca had tested GM-positive. In November, Nature magazine published a peer-reviewed article that confirmed INE's findings. According to Antonio Serratos, of the Mexico-based International Center for the Improvement of Maize and Wheat (CIMMYT), if a farmer with a one-hectare plot plants a single row of GM seed, 65% of the plot will be GM in only seven years.
Monsanto's answer was the introduction of "Terminator" hybrids, genetically-modified seed varieties that will not reproduce. This was sold as a way of preventing the spread of GM hybrids. But because GM hybrids cross-pollinate with other varieties, the end result is that contamination with Terminator seed varieties will result in every farmer in the world being dependent on hybrid seeds, and the attendant loss of all native heirloom varieties. This situation is so dire that concerned farmers in Chiapas are sending native seed corn abroad, where it can be planted and saved in areas free from the risk of cross-pollination with hybrids.
It may be worth noting that Monsanto has acquired or become formally associated with three of the four major corn-producing Mexican seed companies: Asgrow (the #2 producer of Mexican corn seed), Dekalb (#3) and Cargill (#4). Pioneer (#1) is owned by Dupont. Enough said.
At ACÁ, obtaining seed for the farm's large variety of organic vegetable crops, and working to help small farmers with their seed concerns, continues to be a struggle.
Like most small farmers in Mexico, Marie Pruden and Wendee Hill of ACÁ have found that seed is available in Mexico in very few varieties at very few stores, and the quality is not always high. Their first attempt at importing seed started off well with an offer from World Vision to air ship a seed donation. The ACÁ founders trudged through a mountain of paperwork for Mexican authorities, starting with over 120 permit applications, one for each species, filed by Latin name, common name, country of origin and purpose, with each permit filing costing $40 pesos to merely request permission to import the variety. It took 6 months to obtain all the papers and permits needed, getting them translated, filed, and stamped. Although the stack of permits and fees were in order on the Mexican end, the customs forms prepared by the senders on the Canadian side didn't jive with Mexican regulations. So rather than the stamp of approval ACÁ expected when the shipment arrived, they encountered a long wait during which they paid for customs storage. Ultimately, the shipment was confiscated because the seed sat for over six months and was then considered by Customs to be too old to be hygienic. It was a costly lesson.
While new regulations may ease commercial importation of seed in the future, getting seed shipped into Mexico continues to be no task for the faint of heart.
So for many small growers in Mexico, growing and exchanging seed is not just a historical tradition, but also their best plan for the future. With recent changes in the seed laws in Mexico, it is now possible for Mexican growers to grow and market their own seed, and also to develop new varieties.
The Mexican government believes growers must hybridize seed like their U.S counterparts. "Mexico is a rich source of biodiversity and it is particularly important for us to introduce regulations so there is no damage done," says Romarico Arroyo, the agriculture minister. "But if we don't put genetic engineering to use, it will be difficult for us to compete."
Mexico was one of the first developing countries to field test a genetically modified virus-resistant potato developed by their own scientists. Mexico is now commercializing 50,000 hectares of genetically modified cotton and is producing 6,000 hectares of transgenic soya, the seeds of which will be sold abroad.
ACÁ is developing future plans to devote more time to create a much-needed seed exchange with small-scale farmers in Mexico. "Seed is now and will be in the future a commodity of importance in Mexico," says Hill. "We already are seeing farmers becoming interested in preserving the heirloom varieties that are quickly disappearing."
Read the USDA Foreign Agricultural Report on Planting Seeds in Mexico: click here.
