Don't You Love Diet Coke?

But seriously, don't you just love Diet Coke? I love nothing better on a Saturday afternoon than to sit back and enjoy a cool one with lime (and with a slice of lime for extra flavor!). It's probably my favorite non-alcoholic beverage. And like thousands of other products, the artificial sweetener is a genetically-modified organisms.

Fine you say, you'd prefer a regular Pepsi. After all, Beyoncè drinks it. Enjoy the genetically-modified corn syrup, the very best the US government can pay farmers to grow (and sometimes not to grow).

And they say there's really no difference between Coke and Pepsi.

Genetically-modified organisms are not necessarily a bad thing. They were introduced to the market about 13 years ago, and Coke started using it because of the controversy over the harmful effects of saccharine. And I love Diet Coke with Lime, and I'm not going to stop drinking it anytime soon. And if Beyoncè offers me a Pepsi, you'd better believe I'd drink it.

But genetically-modified organisms can all also be a bad thing. Particularly for poor, Salvadorian farmers. And that is why the Archdiocese of San Salvador founded PEBA (Program of Basic Education), the organization I am working with in El Salvador through Christians for Peace. They provide instruction and material assistance to poor farmers who agree not to use GMO crops.

GMO crops are bad for Salvadorean farmers, and the country as a whole, for three reasons. The first is foreign competition. About 4 out of 10 farmers in El Salvador make $2 a day or less. They cannot afford GMO seeds. But large, US corporate agriculture can. And they use this technology to increase their yeilds flood the market with cheap corn and throw small, poor Salvadorian farmers out of business. Ironically, their children will then migrate to the United States (There are three million Salvadorians in the US, and only 7 million here) and probably will end up as a day laborer on a large corporate farm in the United States. And then my conservative friend David will complain how illegal immigrants are destroying American culture. To which I reply that "America" is more than just the Unites States, and that they are "American".

The second reason is that those making more than $2 and hour sometimes can buy GMO seeds. In the past, they got their seeds for free from the foods they planted. But now they have to buy seeds every year, because yes, giant corporations like Monsanto kindly remind the farmers that any seeds in the crops that they grow are the property of Monsanto and not the farmers. Which leads to less money for farmers for every crop they produce, and more for US corporations. Who only have our best interest at heart. That is, if your a shareholder, which most Salvadorians aren't.

And finally, there is the environment. There is a concept of biodiversity, of various breeds of the same plant and other plants (yes, weeds). I`m too lazy to explain why biodiversity is good for the environment, take Environmental Science if you really want to know why (or look it up on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiverse)). And in a place with as many environmental problems as El Salvador (89% of rainwater is acidic and unsafe to drink) and important plants and animals (tropical rain forests), biodiversity might just be a good thing for here. I mean, the campo is gorgeous, and I don't want it to look like Nebraska.


Whew! All this talk about GMOs make me thirsty for some more Diet Coke! If they only had Diet Coke with Lime in El Salvador...