<div>Support Maya peoples' "David and Goliath" struggle to defend their sacred maize from genetically-modified corn. Your donation will support Maya lawyers, community organizers, agronomists, and others working to defend Guatemala's food sovereignty and agrodiversity.
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<div>As anthropologist Liza Grandia quips in her new book <em>Kernels of Resistance: Maize, Food Sovereignty, and Collective Power</em>, "Guatemala doesn’t have a gene problem—it has a greed problem.”
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<li>Note: You can <a href="https://uw.manifoldapp.org/projects/kernels-of-resistance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">download this “open access” book</a> for free. If you do, please consider donating at least the $30 bookstore price to one of the organizations below.
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<div>Guatemala is one of two Indigenous-majority nations in the Americas. Whilst Guatemala exports fruit, vegetables, and coffee to US consumers, half its children go hungry each night. According to UNICEF, an astounding 58 percent of Maya children are malnourished. Guatemala tragically ranks fifth in the world for childhood stunting. (This Q'eqchi' Maya baby is among the tens of thousands who have died from malnutrition-related diseases.)
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<div>Paradoxically, Guatemala is a global center of genetic diversity of maize, beans, and many other foods domesticated by their ancestors. This agricultural bounty gave rise to great ancient civilizations. It has sustained contemporary Maya cultures through centuries of colonial rule and genocide. New corporate threats to Guatemalan agriculture would leave more children hungry and displace more families to migrate to the U.S.
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<div>Even if they could afford genetically modified (GM) seeds and expensive herbicides (which they can’t), for Maya people GM corn is anathema. According to Maya origin stories, the gods once created people from maize. In everyday conversations today, Maya people still refer to themselves as “people of maize” and describe their country as Iximulew (pronounced ee-SHEEM-oo-lay-oo), the land of maize. Maize cultivation is a sacred tradition that has held together communities over millennia
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<div>When shadowy forces tried to pass a law in secret to legalize GM corn in 2014, Maya peoples responded with mass mobilizations never before witnessed in Central America. Through street protests and savvy advocacy by civil society organizations, they have repeatedly rejected attempts by transnational corporations to compel Guatemala to legalize GM corn in 2014, 2015, and 2018.
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<div>Although still technically illegal in Guatemala, field-tests show that Roundup Ready corn pollen has already contaminated native maizes in Guatemala. Q’eqchi’ Maya farmers in the lowlands are reporting strange maizes that survive when sprayed by Roundup (glyphosate). As northern food movements know, Monsanto has successfully sued organic farmers in the US and Canada whose crops were involuntarily pollinated by nearby GM crops. As a Guatemala farmer once remarked to Dr. Grandia, “If they can do that to the gringos, imagine what will happen to us.”
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<div>Yet another <a href="https://efe.com/en/economy/2023-09-13/guatemalan-small-farmers-protest-against-monsanto-law/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Monsanto Law</a> introduced to the Guatemalan Congress in 2023 would criminalize traditional seed saving practices with prison sentences of 1-4 years and $50,000 to $100,000 fines (notably to paid in dollars) for small farmers who unwittingly violate patent agreements if their maize cross pollinates with GM corn.
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<div><strong>Help impoverished Guatemalans in this "David and Goliath” battle to defend their ancestral seeds from corporate greed. Say “no” to more glyphosate in the land of [hiero]glyphs! </strong>
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<div>All donations from this campaign will be divided evenly among the following three organizations. For donors that would like to pass a more substantial donation through a tax-deductible (501c3) allied organization, please see kernelsofresistance.org or write the organizer. Professor Liza Grandia can give Zoom talks to Rotary clubs, churches, and other volunteer organizations interested in developing long term relationships with these grassroots movements.
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<div>1. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RedsagGt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">REDSAG</a> (translated, National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala) is a umbrella network of 60 grassroots and mostly Indigenous organizations. The coalition sponsors seed fairs, youth workshops, radio programs, lively social media for Maya people, investigations of the seed and pesticide industry, and community mobilizations to lobby Congress and the courts.
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<div>2. Bufete para Pueblos Indígenas (the Maya Peoples’ Law Firm), established in 2017 by courageous and tireless Maya lawyers, is Guatemala’s main public-interest law firm that defends communities threatened by extractive industries (oil, mining, etc.), pesticides and other toxic contaminants, human rights violations, and multinational trade agreements. (See their <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064882262740" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Facebook feed</a> for the faces of jubilant, vindicated defendants). They have also played a critical role in Guatemala’s recent democratization. Last but not least, they have crafted an exemplary proactive piece of counter-legislation to the Monsanto Law. This bill #1086 before the Guatemalan Congress would holistically protect Maya seeds, biodiversity, weaving designs, medicinal plants, and other collective knowledge—and a model for movements worldwide of how to protect Indigenous traditional wisdom from privatization and corporate patents. (Maya lawyers and elders making arguments before the Supreme Court in 2020).
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<div>3. <a href="https://www.acdip.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ACDIP</a> (translated, Association of Indigenous Peasant Communities for the Comprehensive Development of Petén) is a Q’eqchi’ Maya peasant federation which works to defend Guatemala’s most bountiful lowland maize territory from land grabbers. This organization is important because Q’eqchi’ Maya farmers produce almost all the maize sold to urban markets for tortillas. They also started the first <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100072336897250" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">agroecology high school</a> in northern Guatemala to teach young farmers how to produce more sustainably. (See another <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/dwight-grandia-memorial-for-indigenous-education" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GoFundMe campaign</a> that raised funds for this boarding school).
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<div>_____
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<div>Any donation makes a difference!
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<ul>
<li>$10 pays for public bus fare and lunch for a Maya youth leader to attend an agroecology workshop.
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<li>$20 will put a copy of the Spanish translation of Kernels of Resistance (forthcoming 2025) in the hands of Maya elders to educate in their villages and towns about this new Monsanto Law.
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<li>$25 pays for the cellphone bill of a key grassroots leaders for months @10 cents a minute.
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<li>$50 would support a Maya leader to travel overnight to Guatemala City to lobby Congress
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<li>$75 will buy an external hard-drive to back up organization’s computer from frequent electrical surges or office break-ins (a common practice to intimidate grassroots activists).
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<li>$100 will pay for 20 test kits ($5 each) for farmers to field-test their corn for GMO contamination.
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<li>$500 will pay for a seed fair in the Maya highlands to support regional seed exchanges.
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<li>$1,000 will enable key leaders to travel to Via Campesina and other agroecology conferences to share lessons from their struggles.
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<li>$2,000 would support a village women’s group to set up a self-sustaining seed bank.
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<li>$4,000 will support a small team of Maya lawyers for a month to file legal briefs.
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<li>$5,000 would fund an illustrated booklet for Maya farmers about the health harms of Roundup and the threat of GM corn to their livelihoods.
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<li>$10,000 would support an advocacy campaign.
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<li>$20,000 would enable civil society organizations to set up an independent PCR laboratory to test for contamination.
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<li>$30,000 would allow scientists to test well and tap water in Maya communities for pesticides.
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<li>$50,000 would double the annual budget of any of these noble, grassroots organizations.
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<div><strong>Why not GMOs? </strong>
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<div>GM crops developed in laboratories are designed to grow well at northern latitudes with irrigation and fertilizer. Even if they were free, these corn varieties simply will not grow well in the tropics where maize crops are sustained naturally by rains. Food sovereignty for Maya peoples can, in turn, support small maize farmers around the world. Mesoamerican farmers have conserved drought-resistant maizes, maizes that grow well on steep hillsides, and even a special maize that can fix its own nitrogen!
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