Monsanto in Haiti series
Part 2 - What do experts say?
Posted March 30, 2011
Part 2 of 4
As Haiti Grassroots Watch began its investigations, its correspondents asked some experts about the Monsanto hybrid “gift.”
Even though Haiti has been importing hybrid vegetable seeds for some time, and despite the fact that at least one Haitian seed multiplier produces Haitian hybrid corn seeds, the entry of the Monsanto varieties was technically illegal, by national and international law.
In recommendations recently filed with the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights for the 2011 Universal Periodic Review, three US-based legal and environmental groups denounced the import of new varieties, citing the Haitian Constitution, a 1986 Haitian law, and international conventions.
Among the dangers presented, the Environmental Justice Institute for Haiti, the National Lawyers Guild-Environmental Justice Committee and the Lawyers Earthquake Response Network noted that “the unrestricted flow of seeds from outside the country presents a high risk that plant-pathogenic organisms or their vectors will be introduced,” and added
Often, seeds which are brought to Haiti are unsuitable for the soil and climatic conditions of the country. In some cases, seeds from open-pollinated crops are planted and the resulting plants may hybridize with indigenous varieties, diluting the gene pool of crop varietals that are suitably adapted to local conditions.
The organizations also deplored the use of “large quantities of commercial hybrid seeds” which necessitate “purchase of new seeds the following year,” as well as the uncontrolled use of dangerous chemicals that “present risk for contamination of Haiti’s scarce water and food supply.”
Louise Sperling, Principal Researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), was in Haiti as the Monsanto controversy erupted, working on a 115-page Seed System Security Assessment/Haiti (SSSA) report. The report notes that most farmers don’t make a distinction between “grain” and “seed,” and that they routinely use their own grain, as well as conventional grains bought in the marketplace before each planting season, as seed. [See Seeding Reconstruction?] Haiti Grassroots Watch reached her in Tanzania in January, 2011, to ask her opinion.
The researcher noted that most hybrids require extra water and better soils, and that most of Haiti was not appropriate for maize hybrids. While not opposed to the use of hybrids – when there is adequate training, irrigation, fertilizer, and when farmers can afford to replace them – she said she was concerned that “the hybrids being promoted have never been tested extensively on-farm” in Haiti.
And, she asked, “What if the technology fails? And, if [farmers] want to buy the seed again, where will it be available and at what price?”
Emmanuel Prophete, head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Service National Semencier (SNS), or National Seed Service, agreed that the seeds were not tested prior to distribution.
However, he defended the Monsanto “gift,” noting that “Haitian farmers have been using hybrids since the fifties.” Prphete also said local and international media had misinformed the public, but making an “amalgam” between “GMO” and “hybrid,” and by saying the hybrid maize seeds were also sterile.
“They are hybrid, but they are not sterile,” the agronomist said.
Like many other non-sterile hybrids, the maize varieties will lose their potency for high yields after the first generation.
Hybrid maize yields much more than traditional corn. At least double. Naturally, it is more demanding. It needs more water, it needs more fertilizer, but if you plant it on a piece of land, you will get at least twice as much yield…
In Haiti, where we have to buy millions of dollars worth of [foreign] food, it doesn’t make sense to fight against something that helps you raise production.
Asked about the fact that new varieties posed a threat to Haitian biodiversity, and that seeds and other plants and animals are being imported into Haiti without control, Prophete admitted that the Ministry does not have the power to control the borders.
“We are supposed to have a quarantine system, and all seeds should be tested for germination and adaptation before they are distributed,” Prophete conceded. “We don’t have the power to do that at this time.”
The Papaye Peasant Movement, one of the country’s largest farmers associations, condemned the “gift” and even held a demonstration on June 4, 2010, where thousands marched and symbolically burned maize seed.
Some of the thousands of MPP farmers protesting Monsanto in June, 2010. Still taken from a video by Ansel Herz/Mediahacker.
“We have a government that accepts any old seed, as long as it is free. It doesn’t matter what it is, it doesn’t matter where it’s from,” agronomist Jean-Claude Monero told Haiti Grassroots Watch. “Also, the chemical fertilizers and chemical insecticides [on the Monsanto seeds] have negative effects on the soil and on human beings.”
Emmet Murphy, director of the ACDI-VOCA development organization, said his agronomists don’t promote hybrid legume or cereal seeds, because “we want to give farmers the power to multiply their own seeds. That’s what you want to do in the long haul.”
Asked about the introduction of the Monsanto hybrid seeds onto Haitian soil, Francesco Del Re of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would not directly condemn the “gift” seeds. But, he noted, for its emergency seed distributions [see Seeding Reconstruction?], the FAO-led “Agriculture Cluster” imported only the seeds on an MARDNR list, “for a very precise reasons, because the hybrids need to be renewed every year and do have to be bought by peasants every year.”
Asked if the FAO attempted to block the Ministry or the USAID/USAID/WINNER program from importing and distributed seeds, Del Re said:
We gave advice. That is what we did. Afterwards, naturally, we are not the national police, so we can’t verify everything, everywhere, but we did all we could do…
I agree with the philosophy that we discussed with the Ministry and that we put into place with them. Afterwards, if other partners make other choices, that is their responsibility.
Father Jean-Yves Urfié, former chemistry professor at the Petite Séminaire Collège St. Martial and former editor of Libète who now works with peasant farmers in Furcy, was one of the first to oppose the Monsanto “gift,” although he originally and mistakenly thought the seeds were GMO.
A “gift” is fine, when “necessary,” he said, but “when you give away seeds for free, and but if there are peasants selling seeds, you will upset that market.”
But what most upset Urfié, who is not necessarly opposed to the use of hybrids under certain conditions, was allowing Monsanto to get a toehold in Haiti.
Like many individuals, organizations and even countries, Urfié is opposed to to use of all GMOs until more testing can be done. He is also opposed to Monsanto’s aggressive marketing tactics:
Monsanto’s practices are famous worldwide for being without conscience… What should guide a company is only making money, of course, they need to make money, but it should be people’s health, not profits...
You cannot serve two masters at the same time - you can’t serve God and money.
Urfié said he would like Haiti to send a “clear sign to farmers all over the world” by being the first country to “stand up to Monsanto” and say: “We don’t want Monsanto here, because it has already proved that it is dangerous.”
Part 2 of 4
Go to Part 3 - USAID/WINNER: Shrouded in Secrecy
Go to Seeding Reconstruction? series
Go to Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? summary and the video
