The first Mayans, the ancestors of this lands They worshiped Corn for being a divine plant before the arriving of the Spanish people to the continent in Guatemala Corn already existed
Mayan people were already cultivating it part of the history, part of the culture,
part of our traditions It is intrinsic to almost all aspects of Guatemalan life so that is LIFE LIFE to men, LIFE to generations,
LIFE to human conscious and spirituality that´s what Corn does in our lives (MEN OF CORN) Domingo, right ? Corn is a blessed grain without Corn, we could not subsist because that´s the main food
in Guatemalan nutrition on that we all peasants depend depends our family,
because without the Corn, we couldn´t live that´s what we eat we eat Corn, in the morning,
in the afternoon and at night Corn in the mornings, as tortillas, tamales at night Corn tamales our hole diet is based on Corn let´s say, to eat bread we are not used to eat bread daily,
bread in the mornings, at lunch, in the evenings, NO to us the principal use of Corn, is not for other sub products
such as animal industry or animal food but mainly for our own feeding depth studies in chemical analysis of food has conditions of strength without Corn the peasants will not have strength
to cultivate the land being a peasant is work from sun to sun is to work hard Corn is a cultural symbol, ancestral,
represents the life of these people identifies them and are virtually the preshispanic Mayan worldview men come from Corn,
It is written in the holy book of Popol Vuh where it illustrate us about the creation,
the creation of earth, of the world and the creation of men to most of the Mayan people from Guatemala,
it´s clear that they are made of Corn we are born with Corn, we die with Corn,
we feed ourselves daily with Corn it´s something that flood in our veins,
not for less we are called men and women made out of Corn something cultural to us Corn has been for hundreds or thousands of years
around us, and we still have it to us Corn is sacred It is what we inherited from our grandparents,
our parents from the time of planting we ask permission to mother land to grow Corn and we did it with much respect with a deep sense of love the red Corn, represents sunrise It is dawn, sunrise the black one,
it´s when the night comes, or the darkness the man who dies, goes under the grave,
or under the land the right arm of the world is the white one,
is the purity of spirit, the purity of God the left arm is the yellow one, where the clouds come
when announces that rain is coming that´s what brings the clouds and the rain the representation flag of the Mayan people
here in Guatemala are four colors, is color white, color red,
color yellow and color black this are the four colors of Corn (THE SEED) when we put the grain of corn on the land,
which represents the head of Jun Junajpu and as it comes out of the land,
comes again to the same corn grain and that forms a whole, cyclic harvest, and we take the seed crop
another harvest and we take the seed crop always native seeds were used we didn´t buy any, our parents had a method
to select the seed, to save and preserve it and to use it at the time of sowing we plant this year and after we select our seed
and is the same seed that we use every year on the fields we do the selection of seeds
by taking the biggest Corn, and the maize that have at least two cobs,
as you can see on equal sizes and you always select the biggest cobs,
and the straight lines and we do it like this and we hang it we let it dry in the shade that´s our seed certified seed means that is a quality seed
that has been produced we call them hybrid seeds,
those that you buy at the agricultural store it is true, they produced bigger cobs,
but are thicker it´s a serious problem creating a conflict
with the ancient practices and with our production system it began to destitute or substitute the native seeds,
the use of native seeds if we draw our seed, we improve them here we select plants that have good height cobs
that such planting is as uniform as possible on the other hand the peasant harvest
and selects the biggest cobs but doesn´t know the behavior the plant had in the field that kind of improvement, the peasant do it in the field
but in period of times much longer with the institute we have achieved these varieties although the seed is improved for more productivity
the problem is, if it is a chemicall contradiction or if it conflicts from the point of view of the use if there is a cultural amalgam,
and integration is possible, it doesn´t contradict but if it contradicts, all we're doing is disappearing identity with this improved seed we realize that generates
much more than the native seed type they use for them with native seed, they produce
3 or 4 hundredweight by plot while with these materials we can produce
up to 7 or 8 hundredweight per plot we double the performance with the excuse of improving production of producing more, the State through
the Ministry of Agriculture influences on the use of hybrid seeds arguing that it is more resistant to pesticides,
resistant to climate change and other lies they tell us at certain time I was given some hybrid seed but didn´t give cobs the plant grows up, but it doesn´t give grain the use of this seeds, is that the peasants use it once but they cannot save and preserve seed from it because they are made for that purpose, to be used once and then generates a dependency
because peasants are in need of buying the seeds if we stop planting our seeds,
we have to depend on buying the seeds in the market some continued using hybrid seeds
others didn´t, and continued using native seeds the introduction of all these hybrid seeds affects all the plantations because of the pollen,
somehow degrades our seed and it has mixed because is an alogama plant
his variety has mixed with mine and others the pollen from cornfield flowers spreads
and harms native seeds we tried to keep our seeds,
by not planting hybrid seeds close to our seeds half with this variety, the other half with mine I feel like that kind of balance is to me the peasant´s wisdom
and is what we must promote and we don´t want to lose that seed, because
these are the best seeds of our ancestors, our grandparents if persons come from another country and says
that our seed are no good, that´s a rejection to me is a rejection (AGROCHEMICALS) one of the goals of the use of these
chemical fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides It has to do with the whole issue of the Green Revolution what I understand about the Green Revolution
is the use of chemical products, specially plague control but also for the nutrition of crops they were looking to improve production,
with the argument of reducing hunger that existed in the country so the Green Revolution came to change all the structure
and the agricultural system improved seeds are introduced at the time peasants saw it all right,
because somehow production was improved what we didn´t know then, was the consequences,
pests immediately appear they began to cause damage to the crop as it was a planned package companies began offering various chemicals the use of fertilizers and agrochemicals,
changes all the system, breaks the structure and it becomes uncontrollable all that is made by laboratories,
demands chemical fertilizers the problem is that you depend on chemicals with all the plagues, each time you required more chemicals as you can see this plague, is affecting our Corn it dries it Many people are reluctant to use agro ecological methods,
and biodynamic methods, organic methods resist to that but what they do not realize is that
they still depend on big transnationals and enriching them
acquiring input packages that keep using on the land and they are intoxicating
their own health and poisoning the land right now all the land was neglected people right now only work with herbicide, insecticide
all products are fumigated it became very hard to all of us,
to some peasants is practical to buy fertilizers apply it , instead of producing their organic fertilizers youth is lost on that side it is not as easy that a young one to remove manure
it is hard, it is hard, I do not know, my grandparents say
that in other times they wouldn´t use chemicals the Corn was planted only with organic manure
but now I don´t know not much, but if you use that chemical
you´ll get some It is said that once produced ....
performance of how much they had ... those who say that earlier they had data related to
the use of organic matter producing some amount
is relative so, almost any seed that people plant
currently for a proper harvest people are applying fertilizer the biggest demand on the Government,
from peasants organizations is fertilizer the Government has been promoting
the use of chemical fertilizers if it produces more grain than a native seed,
definitely needs more nutrients on the land to me it is quite logical then we are not contributing to development we are only contributing to the volume
of the momentary production with a destructive future here, the Corn we produce is almost 60% organic we barely use chemicals if we use chemicals, we affect ourselves so we have to find our own seeds,
you could do a biological study to use combined with natural fertilizer we have the capacity to produce natural soils according to the agronomic conditions of the site organic fertilizer strengthens soil it has been shown to be good that do not harm nature increases production especially a healthy production without polluting that is healthier for the life of our peoples (LAND,LAND,LAND) In Guatemala, the biggest problem is land, land, land it is a permanent problematic
at a social and political level in the 40´s, the 50´s until now the state was giving away land to transnational corporations most of the land is in the hands of very few people while most peasants,
because peasants are the most those with the most land is nothing but a few it is not right nor fair that in Guatemala there are
48 farms with more than 33,300 acres each Meanwhile a large amount of people has no land for example, 80% of the territory is hold by landowners and in the other 20% are located the communities,
national infrastructure and the rest of indigenous people the break point between the large and the small property owner, has been isolating large sections of the rural population, the outcome of this event is people without opportunities Above all, especially marginalized, excluded in Guatemala there are high levels of poverty and extreme poverty that focus on the indigenous population because they don´t have access to land,
because land is concentrated most of the arable land is concentrated in very few hands in small amount of families,
families as big landowners and oligarchs, who understand or have understood the country as his farm that have understood the country as their company in Guatemala those with large extensions of land,
the best land in the country they grow agricultural products to export they are not interested in strengthen crops
because it generates little profit if we can do something in the private plot,
to achieve a reverse of the situation, we do not have any legal instrument to do so if a family goes to work with someone
who has a plantation of rubber or coffee, the Ministry of Agriculture has no instrument
to force that person not to grow coffee or rubber We do not have any land management tool
to do that kind of balance the landlord wants us to pay,
as lease payment, rubber plant with those conditions you can only plant for three years in the fourth year, the rubber trees are grown and the shadow doesn´t let the maize grow when the rubber tree begins producing, the peasant has no option to plant under those trees the maize won´t grow under a tree with that material that generates the rubber, they produce footwear, tires and other rubber derivatives that is why the businessman, the large landowners,
prefer to plant monocultives that generates profit only to them while the feeding to us the peasants is very low we must struggle to achieve some harvest the issue of massive monocultive
have higher priority to the State than the peasant family economy the peasant family economy is circumscribed
to grow vegetables, Corn, beans which it is the basic diet of the peasantry while large monocultives like oil palm,
banana, coffee and others occupy large tracts of territory, most often exempt from taxes (OIL PALM) all of that is oil palm plantation in this case oil palm growers took the land,
and we can no longer grow Corn we have been forced to lease other lands to continue in the work that we have done for years since the land has been scarce by the monocultive sowing of the oil palm there are several areas that were considered
granary in the region or the country and now we don´t see in those places one single Corn field they are surrounded by oil palm, and this is precisely the model that is causing misery, malnutrition, hunger in the country, it is not possible that in a country where its food and culture is based on Corn does not produce Corn production goes to the exterior, revenue is not for the state
they go to the major transnational corporations I have knowledge that the company Natural Oils
arrive in Fray Bartolome de Las Casas about 7 years ago, the type of negotiation they made was not transparent
was not made in the eyes of the population, they used very specific strategies to go covering fields that's how the oil palm appeared, buying farms buying land and buying willingness of peasants they offered certain amounts
to buy the land of the peasants on the other hand manipulating the properties to rent them into believing they would receive a good amount of money during the annual rent today some are already repentant, because they have realized that what the oil palm has left is the destruction of our land they are taking away all the nutrients our land had they have signed contracts for 25 years
to work the lands It is something I have always criticized, each of the owners who sold or leased their properties were not thinking that for 25 years
won’t be able to work in their land or the money they´ll get
will not be enough to fix their lands I do not blame the peasants but the company for using their strategies and mechanisms to wrap and deceive the people of the rural area my dad has left, we were intimidated they threatened that they would not yield to his plot and with the use of force he was told that if he did not sell their land would not have access to his land the policy they handle is to undermine commercially the owners, for planting oil palm if peasants who have their portion of land in that area, one or two doesn´t want to sell, they begin to buy the properties around and despair the peasants
by closing the pedestrian and vehicular path they would not give access to their plots the land of my father was in the middle of the land the large landowners sold to the oil palm companies they said they would put security guards that it was private property and
that access would not be as before when we were free to come and go
in our land as we pleased they do not care or are embarrassed
to leave the peasants without land they just throw you out to grow oil palm peasants and agriculturists have been left with very limited space to grow corn and beans
for their survival and now they rely on labor
to sell to these large farms at a time I had that opportunity to work for a month for the oil palm company I was able to see for myself the exploitation to peasants my nephew was a working foreman but he did not like the exploitation
to which he was subject he considered that the work
they did was exaggerated at the end is a exploitation they are paid very little,
minimum wage which is currently Q74.75 (US $ 10.50) a day but they do not pay extra hours people work from 6 am to 5 pm more than 8 hours
established in the Labor Code they get angry, work schedule here
is from 7 am to 4 pm or 6 am to 3 pm but usually they are working from 5 am
until late at night depending on the activity they are doing on the other hand the people
who work in the company especially the ones in the field cutting the fruit or planting or fumigating or fertilizing throwing chemicals, etc. they are not aware of the physical wear of the people it´s of no use having 100 people cutting
or harvesting the fruit in small quantities It is preferable to have 50 people
doing the same amount of work the company saves food, lodging
and transportation this is the fly, look the short cattle area that remains we have been affected by the plague of flies Cattle are being bitten by the flies
and gives them an illness with fever I lost 6 animals, good animals each cost me Q5,000 (US$ 650)
no one paid me for them last year two of my pigs died because of those flies the cattle keeps shaking or licking where the fly has bitten They stop eating the tormented cattle,
instead of going into the bush goes to the river It is a herd of cattle which has no tranquility they're shaking their head, or their tail shooing the plague is not only the flies they brought, they also have their lab to create more flies, since the extension of the palm is large we know that they have laboratories to fly proliferation to keep a biological control to combat other pests
that affect the flower of oil palm so the fly attacks the plague
that´s why they spread them but it harms us I have this trap because my cattle is seriously affected I went looking for material and I got some to catch the fly and try to reduce the plague what do you say?
may it be a lie? many of the oil palm workers are witness that here they throw chemicals
that really pollute water even the University of San Carlos in a branch of study,
they conducted an investigation and found that the water was less than .5 of oxygen and the rest was pollution It is a company that obviously is not going to agree to have any losses they distribute fertilizers, chemicals, poisons, a bit of everything and all that waste will contaminate the rivers they open ditches, called quenelles so that the water runs
and all that dirt come to the river those are the so called quenelles we drink from this water but we can no longer do that fish don´t die on their own, truth ? (THE PASSION RIVER, 05/11/15
Radio Network FGER) Ladies and gentlemen, it is regrettable situation that exists in the town of Sayaxche, Petén, it´s clearly the large amount of pollution
in The Passion River, We see lots of fish, dead fish in this region of the town of Sayaxche, Petén it's huge the amount of fish that we can see dead in The Passion River tremendous ecological damage by pollution from agro industry specifically Oil Palm that oil palm company they are large portions of land they cut down all the trees and leave it bare colloquially that´s how we speak now all natural forest,
the oil palm came to destroy it they have also cut down trees,
forest where all you see now is oil palm besides the cultivation of oil palm It´s destroying ecosystems in these territories the root of the palm is similar to coconut It expands across the land and goes tangling it is tangled, that after 25 years this land will be totally tangled by the roots when the roots grow they spread
and tie themselves in 25 years after the oil palm, will be difficult to cultivate
a different product and the land will have to be plowed but the production will be lower will not be equal to an area
where it has not existed oil palm all this land, only 10 years ago
cattle was a success in 40 years this will be desert the soil will practically no longer serve
for agricultural crops our basic grains will no longer
be planted naturally because the land will be finished the company is definitely not national, it is foreign some of the owners or partners are nationals but the company is transnational most of the production goes foreign and all those currencies, those revenues do not return to benefit the people but the big business men in Guatemala we do not prepare any drink with the fruit or eat in any way the fruit practically nothing it has no benefit to us we could consume the oil but it is just a small fraction and is very expensive what the hell are they there for if it is to help the people then they have to lower the price of oil nothing, they take it out and send them
to another country to sell it more expensive and to make more money the best quality oil they could extract to sell in Guatemala, they sell us the worst the best they take out of the country then definitely we say that there is no development, definitely no development there is development of poverty, of pollution here one of the great debates is What kind of development are we talking and development for whom evidently the problematic is that
it is not a development for all that is what should be sought at all times in any society democratic, free, open and healthy we as people seek our development but we will not be able to find it if the benefit we could be getting they are taking it away <i>whenever time comes</i> <i>in matters of flags</i> <i>fashion sometimes changes</i> <i>fabric colors</i> <i>would come with buttons</i> <i>with a closure on the border</i> <i>embroidered with foundations</i> <i>to shut us the gates</i> <i>life says it´s business</i> <i>movies say glory</i> <i>the issue is that where they step</i> <i>they take away history</i> <i>the issue is that where they step</i> <i>they take away history</i> <i>the issue is that where they step</i> <i>they take away history</i> <i>the issue is that where they step</i> <i>they take away history</i> (THE STATE´S ROLE) recently the Congress of Guatemala approved the vegetables adoption law here we call it the "Monsanto Law" when people were supposedly distracted with the media circus of football to approve Decree 19-2014 Decree 19-2014 is what has come to be known as the Monsanto Law somehow it was searching for the privatization and patenting of native seed and native plants an aberration of law everything must be said which placed in serious danger native seeds in Guatemala this is an attack not only against life but an attack on the country's heritage It is an attempt on the life of peoples and against humanity how a law passed by these deputies was going to privatize the sacred Corn in Guatemala behind all these laws and policies
the State is implementing are all the transnational companies we think that these policies revolve around the market the reaction was nationally It was of protests there were conducted a series of legal actions in the Constitutional Court for the law to be revoked but it was not through the Constitutional Court the revoked of the law was achieved so it´s important that in time, we should analyze what happened It was by sheer popular pressure articulated through social movements
and organizations it was achieved the deputies retraction they were the ones who repealed the law even that awaken much interest of the people because it was almost creating a national movement against this law of vegetables and we seem to think that
caused a huge fear in the right wing politicians they believed they would deceive the people so it was a collective victory a green sprout within this Guatemala that sometimes is so beaten so hurt and sometimes seems
it doesn´t advance paradoxically even the left vote in favor of this law which explains some of the political ignorance
of those who were there supposedly representing the people's interests many had voted for the law without having read any of the articles of which was composed how can deputies, legislators here in Guatemala pass laws without discussing the items of them but especially I corroborate something that is open secret the law was approved in exchange
for promises of monetary projects and overlapping bribes in Congress this also gives us a picture of the fragility and weakness of the democratic system in Guatemala where persons exercising public function
in Congress as deputies are not formed politically to legislate for the common good of all they are there for pure business and this is a sample in our town that we are in a bad government bad government that sees only
the interests of the economic capital and not sees humanitarian interests in this logic this state has been built out thinking in foreign markets first Spain, then England, then United States and today globalization it always
comes down to the United States and other areas of international metropolis what I see and believe is that the links between government and CACIF representatives they are the ones managing the economy in Guatemala they are well linked to strategically manage the economy of the population
the lower middle class it always has legislated in favor of businessmen and landlords the business sector so strongly organized here in Guatemala then the state has lost perspective of the development dimension and it has become a service intermediary State it has unlinked with rural population and has left them virtually in solitary that has generated various agrarian conflicts in the country one of the big issues to consider dating back more than 12 years is the example of the flat refusal permanently and continuously by various governments in these three last legislatures, last twelve years refusing to approve the Law on Integral Rural Development policies that respond to real development in the field where it is expected to invest
to produce food investing for productive infrastructure for peasants, investing to create agricultural insurance investing in education investing in natural resources use but for the benefit of people the focus point should be the peasant economy by strengthen the rural economy we strengthen agricultural production we strengthen the internal market we strengthen consumption and therefore savings and there we also have to think that although we are not directly benefit a national policy of Integral Rural Development eventually we will gain the most if this country the crops guarantee food security I believe we are not the only ones who consume Corn businessmen eat corn those who are destroying Mother Earth Mother Nature they also eat Corn those who sow and those who do not sow are also eating even though they do not eat what we eat they eat at least two tortillas here in Guatemala everyone eats Corn even deputies even businessmen and sometimes it´s forgotten
that those foods they eat have been cultivated for centuries
by the Guatemalan peasantry especially the indigenous peasantry many people that live in the city and buy Corn and who produces it?
the agriculturist that is the importance for us who live in the country to defend the land in full people who fortunately live in urban areas specifically in the city we must understand that we need of the rural areas of the country that peasant economy is the one helping us have our daily food not being able to see or to consider the indigenous peasants in Guatemala as a proper subject of development of this country by the business community It is an absolute lack of respect It is a lack of respect for people is a disrespect to the Corn itself from which we all come from which we all are born here in Guatemala
