Genetically Engineered Crops Leave Honduras' Poor Behind

... wealthier farmers and agro-businesses benefit from the higher yields and insect resistance of genetically engineered, or transgenic, crops, according to the store manager. But poor subsistence farmers can't afford the seeds or the herbicides and fertilizers needed to get the most from a GMO crop...

By Tim Wall
Genetically engineered corn, soy, and cotton dominate the market in the United States, whereas Europeans largely reject genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. But in Honduras, as in other parts of the developing world, the technology has neither sunk deep roots nor been weeded out.

Hondurans cultivated corn long before the Spanish invasion, but genetically engineered crops change centuries old agricultural practices. While some have embraced these changes and seek to profit from them, others fear that GMOs tip the balance of the agricultural economy to favor the rich and wither corn's cultural heritage.

Three Hondurans involved in agriculture, a farmer who recently planted his first season of GMO corn, an agricultural store manager, and the director of a sustainable farming education center, shared their opinions and experiences with genetically engineered crops in a series of interviews.

In Honduras, wealthier farmers and agro-businesses benefit from the higher yields and insect resistance of genetically engineered, or transgenic, crops, according to the store manager. But poor subsistence farmers can't afford the seeds or the herbicides and fertilizers needed to get the most from a GMO crop, said the education center director.

For mid-sized farmers, like Enrique Mendoza, the engineered seeds can either pay off well or sink them into debt, depending on their agricultural skill and luck.

Enrique Mendoza planted nearly 14 acres of DuPont's Pioneer genetically engineered corn on his farm a few miles outside of Siguatepeque, Honduras. This was his first experience planting transgenic seeds.

The corn was modified to contain, Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, an insecticide, and to survive sprays of the herbicide glyphosate, best known by its Monsanto trade name Round-Up.

“I don't see the problem... It's like buying an improved breed of cattle, the transgenics cost more, but they have a higher productivity,” Mendoza said.

He has heard people's protests that genetically modified seeds endanger local varieties, but is more concerned with paying debts from a failed pig farm. He has six children to support, including a daughter who attends Zamorano, a well-respected agricultural college located east of Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa.

Mendoza's experiment with transgenic corn wasn't a complete success. Although he is hoping to harvest 3,500 pounds of corn per acre, which is about three times that of a traditional variety, he doesn't think he'll see a profit.

“I made some errors. I fertilized twice, but should have only done that once... The same with Round-Up. I used that twice,” said Mendoza, but he plans to try again.

“Next time, I should be able to make a profit, the errors cost me in labor and chemicals,” he explained.

Making mistakes can be the difference between life and death for a Honduran farmer.

“Corn farming isn't self-sustaining here if you don't use good technique. We don't have subsidies like there [the United States]. The majority of farmers grow for their own families to eat and sell what little they have left over,” Mendoza said.

Unfortunately for the subsistence farmers, corn prices change dramatically throughout the year. Corn prices double when the supply is low, before the harvest, according to Mendoza.

“The poor don't have silos, so they have to sell when prices are low to the big companies. The big ones then store the grain until prices are high and sell it... It's a big business for them,” said Mendoza.MK.

Large landholders and agro-businesses are also the main planters of genetically modified seeds in Honduras, Tania Villanueva said in an interview.

Tania Villanueva in the manager at COHORSIL, a farm supply store in Siguatepeque. She sold Enrique Mendoza the seeds he planted.

“For example, exporters near Comayagua [a city in central Honduras] grow melons part of the year, then plant corn to take advantage of the rest of the year,” Villanueva said.

“They can afford the costs, and prefer the security and higher yield of the transgenics,” she explained.

The majority of Villanueva's clients don't use GMOs. She doesn't even keep them in stock.

Most of the farmers who shop at COHORSIL use a native variety of corn, named Guayape, or a variety from Mexico known as Estopeño.

Estopeño is much cheaper than Pioneer's genetically engineered corn. A pound of Estopeño sells for 25 lempiras, (US$1.32). Compare that to 72 lempiras, (US$3.81), for a pound of Pioneer seed.

Estopeño sells in small quantities, but Pioneer's seed doesn't, a farmer has to buy a 24 kilogram (53 pound) bag for 3,800 lempiras, (US$201). That's most of a month's pay at minimum wage, which is 5,500 lempiras, US$291.

Add the cost of fertilizers and herbicides and the bill is far beyond the reach of a poor farmer trying to eke his family's living from the Honduran hills.

There's no one to help foot the bill either. Banks don't offer credit to poor farmers, said Villanueva.

One reason banks don't lend to small farmers is that many of them don't have official titles to the land they have farmed for generations. And if banks do lend the money, the interest rates can be extremely high, Laureano Jacobo Xajil said in an interview.

Xajil is the director of La Semilla de Progreso, the Seed of Progress, an agricultural training center located near Siguatepeque. The center provides intensive training in sustainable organic agriculture to Honduran farmers and technical support as they transition from conventional practices to low-cost, ecologically sound alternatives.

For the past thirty years, 68 year-old Xajil has worked with farmers in Honduras. He is a Mayan, born in Chimaltenango, a town in South-central Guatemala, where he also taught sustainable agriculture.

“We have told everyone we work with to continue planting native varieties,” said Xajil.

He gave three reasons for this.

“One, the transgenics are not good for your health,” he said.

“Also, both the seeds and the chemicals are very expensive...they are an advantage to the biggest who can afford them” Xajil said.

In 2008, genetically engineered seed producer Monsanto pledged to improve 5 million farmers' lives with their products by 2020.

“Together, we must meet the needs for increased food, fiber and energy while protecting the environment,” said Monsanto's president Hugh Grant in a statement quoted in Delta Farm Press.

But Xajil doesn't see how they have lived up to that pledge in Honduras.

“The big companies like Monsanto and Bayer are making their money, but they don't help the small farmers... Also the environment isn't important to them,” he said.

The third reason Xajil doesn't recommend transgenics is that they can't be replanted.

“Ninety percent of the farmers in Honduras save their seed to plant the next year...we have a technique for saving them in plastic bottles with ash to prevent boring insect damage,” said Xajil.

But they can't do that with genetically engineered seed, he said.

Like hybrid varieties, GMOs don't necessarily pass on the same characteristics to their offspring. This means seed from a bumper crop of transgenic corn might not yield a good harvest the next year.

In the United States, farmers have to sign a contract to not save and re-plant engineered seed, but in Honduras such agreements are rarely enforced.

“There is no control of transgenics here,” Xajil stated.

The peoples of Mexico and Central America were the first to grow corn. Corn is an integral part of their cultural identity, much as beer is an ancient part of German culture or olive oil and wine is intertwined with Mediterranean culture.

“Native varieties help us preserve our culture,” Xajil explained. “Sustainable agriculture takes into account the natural world and the value of local seeds.” (12/23/11) (photo of Xajil at La Semilla de Progresso courtesy Tim Wall)