This book analyses the importance of maize worldwide and the special importance for Mexico as a centre of origin and diversity (COD). By adopting a comparative approach, the analysis focuses on how developed and developing countries handle imports of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO & rsquo;s). It also analyses the impact that GM maize imports from the USA may have in Mexico as COD of maize. This book illustrates the process of economic liberalization in Mexico from the 1980 & rsquo;s until the inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. It provides a descriptive and analytical insight into the Mexican legal framework of biotechnology and biosafety. Finally, it outlines the problems of complying with both environmental, and trade commitments.

This compelling book exploresthe intimate connections between people and plants, agriculture and cooking, and the practical work of building local food networks and transnational social movements. Lauren E. Baker uses corn and maize to consider central debates about food security and food sovereignty, biodiversity and biotechnology, culture and nature, as well as globalization and local responses, in Mexico and beyond. For the author, corn symbolizes the commoditization of agriculture and the cultural, spiritual, ecological and economic separation of people from growing, cooking, and sharing food. Conversely, maize represents emerging food movements that address contemporary health, environmental, and economic imperatives while rooted in agricultural and culinary traditions. The meeting of corn and maize reveals the challenge of, and possibilities for, reclaiming food from its commodity status in the global context of financial turmoil, food crises, and climate change.

This book assesses the current state of environmental protection under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Authors from all three member nations - Canada, Mexico, and the United States - analyze the agreements' impact on such issues as bioengineered crops, water policy, climate change, and indigenous rights.

Engaging with Environmental Justice: Governance, Education and Citizenship is a compilation of theoretical and empirical works presented during the 9th Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship conference of the Inter-disciplinary Net in Oxford, U. K.

This book is a compendium of knowledge, experience and insight on agriculture, biotechnology and development. Beginning with an account of GM crop adoptions and attitudes towards them, the book assesses numerous crucial processes, concluding with detai

An examination of how advocates for alternative agriculture confront “science-based” regulation of genetically engineered crops. Genetic engineering has a wide range of cultural, economic, and ethical implications, yet it has become almost an article of faith that regulatory decisions about biotechnology be based only on evidence of specific quantifiable risks; to consider anything else is said to “politicize” regulation. In this study of social protest against genetically engineered food, Abby Kinchy turns the conventional argument on its head. Rather than consider politicization of the regulatory system, she takes a close look at the scientization of public debate about the “contamination” of crops resulting from pollen drift and seed mixing. Advocates of alternative agriculture confront the scientization of this debate by calling on international experts, carrying out their own research, questioning regulatory science in court, building alternative markets, and demanding that their governments consider the social and economic impacts of the new technologies. Kinchy focuses on social conflicts over canola in Canada and maize in Mexico, drawing out their linkages to the global food system and international environmental governance. The book ultimately demonstrates the shortcomings of dominant models of scientific risk governance, which marginalize alternative visions of rural livelihoods and sustainable food production.

Providing over 200 entries on politics, government, economics, society, culture, and much more, this two-volume work brings modern Mexico to life. Viva Mexico! Border sharer. Major trade partner. Exporter of culture and citizens. Tourist destination. Mexico has always been of the utmost significance to the United States, with the shared 2,000-mile border, historical ties in mutual territory, and history of Mexican labor coming north and American tourists heading south. Fresh, current information on Mexico, the North American hotspot and gateway to Latin America, is always in demand by students and general readers and travelers. This is the best ready-reference on the crucial topics that define Mexico today. More than 200 essay entries provide quick, authoritative insight into the Mexican politics and government, society, institutions, events, culture, economy, people, issues, environment, and states and places. Written mostly by Mexicans and Mexican Americans, this set gives an accurate and wide view of the United States's dynamic southern neighbor. Each entry has further reading suggestions; a chronology, selected bibliography, and photographs complement the text.

Argues that maize biodiversity in central and southern Mexico is threatened as much by rural out-migration as by the flow of genes from genetically modified to local corn varieties.

Although GM crops are seen by their advocates as a key component of the future of world agriculture and as part of the solution for world poverty and hunger, their uptake has not been smooth nor universal: they have been marred by controversy and all too commonly their regulation has been challenged as inadequate, even biased. This book aims to understand these dynamics, examining the impacts of GM crops in diverse contexts and their potentials to contribute to sustainable agricultural futures. Part 1 draws on research from three global ‘rising powers’ – Brazil, India and Mexico – exploring the views of scientists, farmers and publics. Using a diverse array of ethnographic and qualitative methodologies, the book examines the dynamics that have underpinned the controversy in three diverse geo-political contexts, the manner in which dominant institutional framings have been closely aligned with the interests of powerful elites, and the multiple ways in which these have been resisted through local, symbolic and material practices. Part 2 comprises a series of short comment pieces from 11 leading social and natural scientists responding to the question of how to develop a policy framework for the responsible innovation of sustainable, culturally appropriate and socially just agricultural GM technologies. This innovative book offers new insights for researchers and postgraduates in Science and technology studies, Agro-ecology and Environmental Studies, Development studies, Anthropology, Human Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Public Administration, Latin American studies, and Asian studies.

"'Globalization.'" The rise of Trumpism has once again galvanized public debate about this highly charged term. This book looks at the last time the concept spurred wide-ranging and unruly agitation: the late twentieth century. In offering a transnational history of the explosive emergence of antiglobalization movements in the United States and Mexico, it considers how farmers, workers, and Indigenous peoples struggled to change the direction of the world economy. They did so by grounding their efforts to confront free-market economic reforms in frontline struggles for economic and racial justice. The story revolves around three popular organizations, and their paths allow us to reinterpret some of the crucial moments, messages, and movements of the era, including the Mexican roots of the idea of food sovereignty, racism and whiteness at the momentous 'Battle of Seattle' protests outside the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings, and the rise of dramatic street demonstrations around the globe"--