Monsanto in Haiti series
Part 4 - What Haiti Grassroots Watch found
Posted on March 30, 2011
Part 4 of 4
USAID/WINNER attempted to block Haiti Grassroots Watch’s investigation by denying interviews and refusing to give information about who received the Monsanto seed.
But after numerous telephone calls, visits to the countryside, and hours of research, journalists tracked down one association which was happy to talk about Monsanto and other seed aid.
Perhaps a little naively, the members of the association gave interviews and showed off their Boutique d’Intrants Agricoles (BIA) or Agriculture Input Store. However, given the aggressive nature of WINNER’s attempt to block this investigation and other media inquiries, Haiti Grassroots Watch decided to conceal the identify of the association and its members.
They will be identified as “Association” and “Farmer,” even though Haiti Grassroots Watch spoke to two separate members of Association. The main interview was conducted with a member who had received training as a “Paysan Vulgarisateur” (PV) (peasant extension worker). According to an article in Le Nouvelliste, Farmer is one of likely 840 extension workers trained in 2010.
Note: This USAID/WINNER partner is just one of 200 associations with which the project claims to work. While it cannot be assumed at all partners are equal to Association, neither can it be assumed that Association is somehow the “one bad apple.” If Haiti Grassroots Watch had been given access to a list of WINNER partners, a more scientific survey could have been conducted.
Dangers to Humans and the Environment
Association’s BIA is actually a room in a community building that was unlocked and unstaffed on at least once Haiti Grassroots Watch visit. The building is located in a neighborhood full of families with children.
Inside the room, sacks of sorghum and maize seeds, bags of fertilizer and boxes of seeds are all jumbled into a huge pile. Some of the sacks are labeled, others are not. Several open bags from Monsanto/Dekalb in Brazil spill bright pink, chemically coated maize seeds onto the floor.
Other maize seeds are in unlabeled white sacks which are punctured with holes… made by rats? Children? The farmers? That seed is covered with a white powder.
A half-empty bag of Pioneer seeds, also presumably hybrid, and presumably treated with fungicide and herbicide, sits open. Sunlight streams in through two windows, meaning that airborne Maxim XL, which coats the Monsanto/DeKalb seeds, and other airborne fungicides, pesticides and fertilizers could just as easily stream out. And into the lungs of nearby schoolchildren.
According to Syngenta, maker of Maxim XL, the fungicide is applied to “more than 90 percent of hybrid corn” in the US. Syngenta and other documentation warns that skin and eye contact, and inhalation, is dangerous.
“DO NOT use treated seed for animal or human consumption... DO NOT allow treated seed to contaminate grain or other seed intended for animal or human consumption. DO NOT feed treated seed, or otherwise expose, to wild or domestic birds,” one warning label reads.
Boxes of vegetable seed – presumably from Monsanto but not labeled as such – are jumbled about. Many of the seeds are treated with Thiram. In 2004, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that Thiram cannot be used in home gardens, on apples, or on playing fields. The 260-page report also detailed adverse health effects on humans, noting details like “the chronic toxicity profile for Thiram indicates that the liver, blood and urinary system are the target organs.” Thiram also has “effects” on foraging birds’ reproduction, and thus Thiram-coated seed should not be broadcast on the soil.
There are also bags of Mancozeb. The EPA also looked at Mancozeb recently (2005), saying the fungicide “poses some acute and chronic risks to birds and mammals” and that handlers need to wear full protective clothing, gloves and a “PF 5” respirator.
“Yes, all of this is dangerous. When you use Mancozeb, the farmer needs to wear a face mask, glasses and gloves,” Farmer agreed. “USAID doesn’t give them to us, but we buy them so they are available to the farmers.”
When Haiti Grassroots Watch asked Farmer where the gloves and masks were stored, he looked around under some of the seed sacks.
“Well, maybe they ran out but we always buy them and have them here,” he said, hesitantly. “I don’t know exactly where they are.”
Farmer and the journalists thoroughly searched the room. There was no protective gear.
Asked about the open sacks of seed, Farmer said Association intended to grind up the sorghum and maize seed for chicken feed because it was “expired” (although there were no dates on the sacks.) Shocked, Haiti Grassroots Watch journalists pointed out that on the sacks for two maize varieties – the ones with labels, at least, since one maize variety and one sorghum variety had no labels at all – it was written that human and animal consumption was dangerous.
Farmer promised not to use the seed for Association’s chickens.
Creating Dependency?
Although Farmer was reportedly a trained extension agent, he did not seem to have a good handle in the seed varieties in the room, nor on the kind of dependency that could be created by them.
But did know one thing: he and other farmers liked the Monsanto seed so much, Association had run out and had asked WINNER for more. Association still had “Pioneer,” which was also popular, Farmer said, as he dug his bare hands into the open sack and held up some seeds.
“It’s good and quick… Peasants here like it because it matures quickly.”
Asked if it was hybrid, Farmer said: “No, it’s not hybrid. It’s Pioneer. It’s an imported corn that has products on it so it doesn’t rot.”
In fact, corn seed from Pioneer, owned by Monsanto’s arch-rival Dupont, is hybrid. It is also coated with Maxim XL and other fungicides and pesticides.
Asked about the mound of bright red maize sacks, Farmer said he didn’t know where it was from, nor if it was hybrid.
Haiti Grassroots Watch pointed out that the red Dekalb saks contained Monsanto hybrid maize.
“We love Monsanto seeds,” Farmer said again. Although he noted that the bigger kernels don’t always fit in farmers’ corn mills. He also said some peasants didn’t want to plant the seeds in the red sacks because they were not used to the sacks.
“Before, peasants didn’t used to plant hybrids. They used local varieties… They didn’t realize the advantages of hybrids, but we did a cornfield with hybrid corn and now they see how much the hybrid produces!” Farmer added. “You get two or three ears on each stalk. It’s a real advantage.”
The local peasants like the BIA because it sells all of the products – seed, fungicide and fertilizer – at 10 percent of actual price. This has also encouraged peasants to buy the new varieties, Farmer said, adding:
Here they can get all kinds of products and they don’t have to pay too much. They don’t have to kill themselves like before. They can plant, harvest, sell or eat. They don’t have to save seeds anymore because they know they will get seeds from the boutique. [emphasis ours]
What about when the USAID/WINNER project ends, in 2014, and Association no longer gets free seed it can sell for what Farmer himself called a “ridiculous” price?
It’s true that we won’t have USAID anymore, but we were farmers before… WINNER didn’t make us into farmers… We will figure out a way to keep the store going so farmers can get these seeds to plant.
Haiti Grassroots Watch’s investigation raises alarming questions, among them:
• Why is USAID/WINNER keeping its work under wraps? Why are staff not allowed to speak with the media?
• Why was the Ministry so quick to approve the import of the Monsanto seeds and other new varieties, in direct contradiction with Haitian law and before conducting germination tests at the SNS?
• Apart from the 60 MT of Monsanto seeds noted in the leaked report, did the rest of the Monsanto “gift” arrive? What other new varieties of maize and other corn have come into Haiti?
• How much total chemically treated new varieties have been brought into the country by USAID/WINNER and by other organizations? Where have they been distributed? Are farmers provided with training? With protective gear for free? Have precautions been taken regarding storage and planting of the seeds?
• Is anyone at USAID/WINNER or the Ministry worried about the dependency being created by the BIAs which are selling seed, fertilizers and other inputs at 10 percent of actual cost for five years only?
Note: After the visit to Association, on March 10, Haiti Grassroots Watch sent a list of questions to Marcelin, requesting explanations and responses. Although he promised “follow up,” as of March 30, no responses had been sent.
Part 4 of 4
Go to the beginning of the series
Go to Seeding Reconstruction? series
Go to Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? summary and the video
