From readers.

The Threat to Mexican Corn

The article "Risking Corn, Risking Culture" (November/December 2002) fails to mention the intensive research that CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) has conducted to help Mexican farmers conserve traditional varieties of maize (corn) in the communities where those varieties evolved. CIMMYT was not merely a participant in the 1995 seminar on the potential effects of genetically modified maize in Mexican farmers' fields. We organized it and published the results. Then, as now, we believed that research with farmers is crucial for dealing with this issue.

Our research comprises numerous field programs throughout the developing world, not simply high-tech labs and gene banks. Through maize and wheat research, CIMMYT and its partners have helped millions of impoverished people to reduce malnutrition, raise incomes, and conserve natural resources. Contrary to the impression given in the article, CIMMYT receives only 3 percent of its funding from the private sector, including "biotechnology-related companies." Half of this funding is used to develop products that free poor farmers from buying seed from private companies.

CIMMYT's biotechnology research, funded largely by nonprofit organizations, speeds the development of maize and wheat that will benefit poor people. Much of this research has nothing to do with genetic engineering. All of our scientists adhere to strict biosafety protocols, which are revised regularly to reflect new standards and practices. Although our protocols were under revision when the author visited CIMMYT, updated protocols will be available in early 2003. It would have been irresponsible and irrelevant to provide the author with an obsolete set of protocols. Lest anyone doubt CIMMYT's forthrightness on the issue of transgenes and our genebank collection of Mexican landraces, we invite them to visit our website (www.cimmyt.org) and view our regular updates on this topic.

More than 80 percent of Mexican farmers (who are overwhelmingly smallholders) plant recycled seed, the preponderance of which is seed of traditional varieties rather than seed company hybrids. These farmers are not dependent on seed companies, but if they are led to believe that their traditional varieties are "infected with GMOs" and unsafe to grow and eat, this situation may change. The effect on maize diversity and indigenous cultures...