Support for the Manifesto prepared at the "Diverse Women for Diversity" Festival

From Agroecology as a transdisciplinary field of design and production of actions and institutions for the transformation of food systems towards sustainability and well-being and of CLACSO Working Group on Political Agroecologywhich seeks to establish a common framework for analysis to enhance collective agroecological action with multiple actors and at multiple levels and dimensions, we adhere to Manifesto prepared by women at the “Diverse Women for Diversity” FestivalRegarding the presidential decree to gradually eliminate the use of GMOs and glyphosate in Mexico.

Mexico is the second most biodiverse country on the planet, the result of a millennia-long co-evolutionary effort between humans and non-humans. The expansion of this mega-diversity centered on the domestication and ongoing diversification of maize and the milpa system; these elements shaped the agrarian life of its peoples throughout the country, sculpting its landscapes and contributing to the long and complex construction of worlds and the diverse ways of understanding and building them. Hence, its rich symbolic and material expression is embedded in each of its cultures, languages, forms of production, and cuisines. In Mexico, without maize, there is no root. The CLACSO Political Agroecology Working Group supports and reproduces in this space the manifesto of these women who weave resistance and struggles, food and culture, biodiversity and rights, community and sovereignty.

MANIFESTO

We, the women of the world, gathered in Dehradun, India as "Diverse Women for Diversity", and representing 17 nationalities and multiple cultures, welcome and support the decision of the Mexican government through the presidential decree to phase out the use of GMOs and glyphosate.

We are outraged and dismayed that the United States government is trying to pressure the Mexican government to impose GMO corn in violation of Mexico's sovereignty and its sovereign rights enshrined in international agreements.

We, as diverse women of the world who work for the protection of biodiversity and resist the imposition of GMOs that destroy our biodiversity and our food sovereignty, support the Mexican government and condemn the intimidation by the United States and the biotechnology industry to impose GMOs on Mexico and the world, violating the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which enshrine sovereignty and the
precautionary principle. We also ask the European Commission to uphold the decisions it has made under the precautionary principle.

We ask the Government for the following:

– Stop this strategy of pressuring the Mexican government to accept genetically modified corn. Mexico is the world's genetic reservoir for corn, which we must preserve.

– To recognize and accept the political decisions adopted democratically by a sovereign country.

– Recognize that Mexico's policies are based on solid international scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful impacts of GMOs and glyphosate on human and environmental health.

– Recognize that the biodiversity of maize in Mexico is essential for food sovereignty not only in Mexico, but worldwide. No genetically modified organisms should be introduced into a country that is a center of diversity.

We, as diverse women, were born as a movement in defense of biocultural diversity and we resist GMOs worldwide, since GMOs, pesticides, and the industrial food system are the main reasons for the disappearance of biodiversity. We will continue our struggle in defense of life, diversity, and freedom.

March 16th 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Political Agroecology

This statement expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.