Greetings from Buenos Aires! I arrived here Wedenesday afternoon after spending a few days in Santiago, Chile seeing the sites and practicing my Spanish before beginning interviews. It turns out that Chile is a very bad place to practice Spanish because they talk fast and have a lot of vocabulary that only they use. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my time in Santiago. I went to the central market, did a city tour, ate at a famous ice cream store, and ran up Cerro San Cristóbal, a big hill/park in the middle of the city.
Shortly after arriving in Santiago, I went to a weekend craft fair and stumbled upon a vendor selling organic herbs and vegetables. She had this sign, which translates to “Out with Monsanto in Chile / GMO-free foods / Seeds of the farmers in resistance.” She said that she displays the sign to initiate conversation about GMOs (“transgénicos”) because the public doesn’t know much about them. I later learned that Chile has fascinating GMO regulations – scientists can develop biotech seeds for export, but Chilean farmers cannot cultivate GM seeds themselves. At the same time, it is legal to import foods with GM ingredients, and there is no mandatory labeling.
Thus, whether you’re a farmer who wishes to reap the financial benefit of GMOs, or a consumer who wants to avoid them, everyone loses in this situation. It’s not surprising that the woman in the market was trying to educate the public. I wish I could have stayed longer to attend a meeting of her anti-GMO activist group, and to see what Chilean scientists think about engineering seeds destined for cultivation in faraway places. However, I had to catch my flight to Argentina: a country with millions of acres of GM soy, an anti-GMO consumer counter-movement, and a new government that could change the way the biotech companies and farmers operate.
When I arrived, I learned a lesson in flexibility when my interviews with Argentine scientists were postponed until next week because of a holiday. In the meantime I’m in Buenos Aires, and will visit an organic market tomorrow to speak with vendors and consumers.