Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica - Ecobrief

Ecobreves – LATIN AMERICA: Jeers for World Bank Transgenics Plan

MEXICO CITY, Jul 1 2006 (IPS) - Latin American environmentalists and social activists closed ranks against the World Bank, which proposes developing biosafety research in the region, through the cultivation of genetically modified maize, potato, yucca and cotton.

“We are going to halt this plan, which is to begin in 2007. Civic, farmer and environmental groups — we are united,” Silva Ribeiro, Latin American spokesman for the Canada-based non-governmental Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, told Tierramérica.

The activists charge that it is a project prepared by the World Bank with the support of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, based in Colombia, and that it aims to finance itself through the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Ribeiro said that developing transgenic maize, potato and yucca will expose native varieties of these crops to genetic contamination, as Latin America is the historic origin of these plants. Furthermore, he said, transgenics could hurt the peasant farmer economy.