GREENPEACE BRAZIL WINS TRANSGENIC RICE DISPUTE AGAINST BAYER

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 10 Sep 2009

Alexandra Pereira

‘Feijoada Com Arroz’, a dish consisting of white long-grain rice accompanying a stew of dark beans and different kinds of meat, like Brazilian linguica or carne seca, sliced fruits like orange or pineapple, fried polme bananas, finely chopped cabbage and farofa – toasted yucca or manioc flour –, especially flavoured and poured on top of it) is one of the most popular dishes, or even the national food of Brazil – preferably eaten while listening to Brazilian tropicalist music and accompanied by an Antartica or Kuat Guarana, a Brahma beer, caipirinha, sucos (juices) of tropical fruits or chopinho, it is the perfect excuse for all the great Saturday lunch meetings of families, friends and communities, both inside the country and abroad.

‘Feijao com arroz’ is the social food of Brazil in the sense that every Brazilian identifies its taste with the core of their cultural identity (the mixture of great African influences brought by slaves, colonialist influences and native influences, also expressed in food; or the mosaic of different races and cultures that modern Brazil is), in a symbolic manner: it ‘tastes like home’! Actually Brazilians commonly use one of the Portuguese words for ‘tasty’ (‘gostoso’) to indiscriminately describe either delicious food, pleasant places and activities, good music, nice books, warm sea water temperature on the beach, a sunny day, an Italian icecream, a fine film, attractive or affectionate people, or any pleasant experience – that’s how important taste buds are in our language.

Every Brazilian can eat ‘Feijao com arroz’, so at the same time the dish levels off social classes otherwise distinct and separated, it sews the deep social hiatus – it is eaten at least once per week by the poor inhabitants of the shanty towns, both in the North and the South of the country (with distinct traditions), in coastal cities and the interior states, in the popular neighbourhoods of Rio, small houses in the Amazon region or satellite cities of Sao Paulo and in the mansions of Brazilia’s MPs, by syndicates’ leaders, government members and the rich bourgeoisie alike. In fact, few things manage to bring Brazilians as close and together as a nation as ‘Feijao com arroz’ and other more refined culinary deliciousnesses – perhaps only music, the love for the national theatre, cinema and tv actors, the language/poetry and football games of the World Cup.

But… why should the national food of Brazil become the favourite test field for ‘broad laboratory experiments’ designed by one of the world’s most powerful corporations??!!! Quite sadistic idea, no? Well Bayer had it, in the name of profit. Nonetheless, this shocking idea caused a wave of indignated reactions as well as solidarity campaigns both in Brazil and abroad.

Actually, I can hardly think of a greater offence to Brazil’s national identity and pride than such diabolic thought – not only attacking the national recipe, but also trying to attack the health of millions of common people, as if there was an underlying premise similar to: ‘they are mostly poor and can’t defend themselves – if their health is compromised, who will care?’.

First of all, poor is very, very far from being a synonym for stupid (I find it amazing how some cultured beings of the so-called ‘first world’ still can’t distinguish both concepts). Second, Brazilian authorities can defend the health of their own citizens, and Brazil’s society is not asleep. Finally that premise is so incredibly prejudiced and ignorant: Brazilians are immensely proud of their heritage and they would never approve plans similar to those. So they didn’t. And that’s a victory that Greenpeace Brazil can proudly celebrate, together with many thousands of people who didn’t want their daily ‘Feijao com arroz’ spoiled.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace Brazil, alarmed by the Frankensteinian greediness of Bayer’s project, launched well-informed street and online campaigns, based on all data collected by the most credible independent researchers and laboratories in the world. Their clever and effective campaigns reached common citizens, sometimes only by simply informing:

‘Your daily dish of Feijao com arroz is about to become a test field of Bayer, who wants to plant in Brazil the transgenic rice Liberty Link 62. Resistant to the agrotoxic glufosinate of ammonium (also produced by Bayer), the LL62 rice is not being planted nor commercialized anywhere else in the world. It represents a serious risk for the biodiversity, the human health and the farmers who choose not to plant transgenics in the future.’

To be treated not only as a laboratory rat, but also as stupid, is not a nice experience for anybody – although it represents a shameful paradigm of the kind of distorted relationships that the Northern Hemisphere has maintained with the Southern Hemisphere for many centuries now – and the Brazilian National Biosafety Technical Commission (CTNBio) seems to know that. After the public hearing of the 17th of March 2009, all indicators reveal that the issue is now closed for them.

Greenpeace Brazil attended the public hearing by exposing and denouncing the case, taking with them not only reports by independent biologists and specialists but also the requests of different petitioners and more than 20 thousand cyberactivists who do not want to swallow Bayer’s transgenic rice when they’re simply gathering with friends and family to have a ‘gostoso’ lunch on Saturday afternoons. Also other producers and researchers spoke against Bayer’s rice in that hearing.

‘"Why did Bayer make tests with transgenic rice using chickens, if chickens do not eat rice?" – this and other very simple questions, astonishingly, were left unanswered during the hearing promoted by the CTNBio. Since then, four other meetings of that Commission took place and no voting on the transgenic rice was back on their agenda, which can be considered a major victory.

Other important global campaigns carried out by Greenpeace Brazil, an incredibly active and very well organized group of people which has been developing extraordinarily important awareness and information actions, are connected with:

– Intentional/criminal fires and deforestation of the Amazon

– Public and global awareness while purchasing wood furniture and other wooden materials (please, anywhere you are in the world, always make sure that you buy wood products certified by FSC – the Forest Stewardship Council – and let the sellers know that you care about the provenience of the wood; be a responsible consumer).

– Soya plantations and creation of mines in the Amazon

– Cattle pasturelands in the Amazon

 (Other Recent Good News by Greenpeace: ‘Bertin, the world’s largest leather exporter is joining the fight against deforestation and climate change and is finally doing the right thing and backing the call for a moratorium on buying cattle from farms responsible for Amazon deforestation’)

– Use of transgenics and biotoxic products by international corporations in Brazil

– Toxic and nuclear waste

– Nuclear energy and alternative energy policies (Brazil already is one of the biggest producers of renewable energies in the world, including the ethanol biodiesel made from sugar cane, solar and eolic energy plants, and it is rapidly adapting its infrastructures and laws to host new renewable energy projects)

– Preservation of the oceans and rivers

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