It's a type of corn we've grown since the time of my forefathers.
It's been passed down from generation to generation.
My grandparents, my great-great grandparents, way back.
Estela Morales lives in the Sierra de Juarez mountain range, Oaxaca, southern Mexico.
One of the birthplaces of corn farming,
Corn is the basis of life here.
But some say this way of life and farming are at risk from an invasive outsider...
which could erradicate local varieties: genetically modified corn.
Once modified genes are released into the atmosphere, they accumulate,
and over the medium and long-term they will have an undesirable impact on native varieties.
An indigenous Zapotec farmer and environmental activist,
Aldo Gonzalez, is constantly looking out for GM corn plants, which are banned in Mexico.
I'm pretty sure this corn plant is genetically modified
It doesn't have as many flowers. It just doesn't look like the other corn plants
Whether it's in a Mexico City neighbourhood like this one
or Estela Morales's kitchen in Oaxaca,
the ancient corn tortilla is a universal food staple in Mexico.
Corn emerged as this distant cousin, Teosintle. It still grows wild in parts but
was adapted over milenia through the type of seed selection Morales still practices today.
You choose the biggest one, it's for seed.
You pick it apart with your hands and then you store your seed away.
Commercial planting of GM corn, genetically modified to repel insects or tolerate herbicide,
is banned in Mexico, partly due to fears that pollinisation...
could endanger thousands of local varieties
GM corn is sometimes imported from the United States as food
Experts who have detected modified genes in Oaxaca corn...
say those grains often sprout and pollinate.
Until now the effect has been minimal.
But anti-GM activists here are on high alert.
The government has allowed global biotech firms like US giant Monsanto
to plant GM corn in non-commercial experimental plots in the country's north.
Groups like Greenpeace fear full-scale commercial farming may not be far off.
With possibly disastrous consequences.
Once full-scale commercial farming starts contaminating native crops,
it will be impossible to stop.
Such claims are unwarranted scaremongering, say the Biotech firms.
The facts are getting twisted.
People have been telling small farmers for 15 years...
that GM corn is going to contaminate their local varieties and make them disappear
the corn is going to be deformed. They show them photos of mutant corn
Salamanca says the target GM corn market in Mexico is big farms in the north...
and that in any case the law bars them from native corn areas like Oaxaca.
Although he says new technology should be open to all, and that environmentalists are being unfair
by stubbornly insisting that they carry on with their traditional methods...
because they want to preserve these methods from an anthropological point of view
as an outside observer
well this attitude over the long term is going to send these species of corn into extinction.
I think it's unjust.
You also have to provide technological tools to small farmers and that's not happening.
The stakes, GM opponents say, are too high.
It's like saying, "let's drop an atomic bomb".
We'll see how many people we kill and what the long-term impact is.
Is that an experiment we want to do?
The Mexican government will ultimately decide whether GM corn grows here commercially.
The main official overseeing the issue thinks farmers would accept it
if it satisfied their needs, even in places like Oaxaca.
If it satisfied their needs. Even in places like Oaxaca.
Give them a reason. Show them the benefits...
If they normally harvest a ton, but could harvest two, or three
then of course they're going to say yes.
It depends how you put it to them.
No insects have eaten it, because it's native corn
Estela Morales, at least, plans to stick with what she knows
This is the type of corn we're used to.
We don't want another type of corn, we don't want to change.
This belongs to us, and we have to protect what's ours.
Even if it doesn't yield as much.
There's nothing like native corn. Our corn