The Green Revolution
Rural Cuquio, Mexico is increasingly receiving attention from major agribusinesses: Monsanto, DuPont, etc. What benefits could be motivating these corporations from setting up shop in a place where incomes range from $0 – $1.05 an hour? Cuquio is a region of campesinos, poor subsistence farmers. Allegedly the presence of these businesses would be mutually beneficial but according to this article that doesn’t seem to be the case. While Monsanto et. al promise higher yields, start up costs are higher, not to mention health risks. Farmers untrained in the use of toxic pesticides are poisoning frogs, the soil, and themselves.
“The local doctor in Cuquio says that two of every 10 patients who visit him during the rainy season months of June through October each year are poisoned by agrochemicals. Three or four die each year.”
Though tragic in itself, these three or four annual deaths may become overshadowed as farmers already struggling for survival are being diverted by the loud voices of large corporations that offer quick chemical-induced fixes, from sustainable solutions that would secure more fruitful harvests over time (such as those proposed by Mexican agronomist Juan Alba Quezedo).
